In
my career as property developer, I’ve made some mistakes.
It’s
good not to make mistakes to start with, or even better, learn from other
people’s mistakes!
Here’s
a selection of my biggest howlers over the years… laugh along with me… but
don’t repeat these daft mistakes yourself!
One
big boo-boo I won’t be repeating: putting laminate floor in rental houses!
I
have it in my own house just now, it’s already trashed after just 18 months so
will be coming out soon… so why did I think it would be hardwearing enough for
tenants?!
The
one rental house I put it in, their pets kindly seeped that laminate in urine…
lovely 😖
So
into the tip that lot went when they left, a mistake never to be repeated! 😱
Here’s
another property mistake I won’t ever be repeating: asking for investment
funding on too short a timescale!
A
lovely investor offered to lend me money for a project, but I only asked for 2
months to bridge a gap before my refinance money came through - which in
hindsight was ridiculous on my part.
What
happened next was that my planned project got gazumped, and I couldn’t get
another property acquired fast enough and time ran out.
But
because I always do as I’ve promised I then gave the investor their money back
plus their couple of grand interest as agreed - despite not even ending up with
a project! 🤦🏻♀️
But…
that same investor, having seen I can be trusted, went on to lend me funds for
two projects.
And
although it was an expensive lesson for me, I now know to always ask for at
least a 12-month investment period for projects, just in case something goes
wrong!
Hey
ho, we live and learn from our mistakes - we just don’t do them again!!!
Another
mistake I’ve made was not creating enough storage.
This
wasn’t apparent at the beginning, where the kitchen units were adequate for a
single mum. My logic for not adding more was they might want to use that wall
and space for a dining table.
But
fast forward a couple of years, and the family of 2 had grown to a family of 6,
and they were struggling for storage space.
There
is never enough storage, even in my own house, so we added these additional six
units to the kitchen to relief the storage burden.
Good
learning for the future!
Today
I’ll tell you another property mistake lesson I learnt the hard way - not
inspecting enough!
In
one of my early rentals, the family just had a baby, seemed nice, so I mostly
left them to it.
Fast
forward 3 years when they moved areas, the entire house and floor coverings
stunk and were ruined by the fact the tenants had accumulated SIX dogs!
Bear
in mind, their letting agency tenancy agreement stated no pets allowed, so the
agency obviously hadn’t been inspecting either… it was the neighbour afterwards
who told me about their illegal half dozen dog collection!
So
there you go, keep inspecting your property on a regular basis!
🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶😱
Oh
gawwwd, another property mistake not to be repeated… dodgy decor colours!
Now
bear in mind I am no interior designer…
My
first few houses all had what I call ‘The BMW Treatment’ - Beige Magnolia
White! 😆
That
was when magnolia boxes were the “in thing”!
Then
I got a load of cheap paint - about 40 tins of the stuff - which was used in
the next couple of houses (hey, we’re always on a budget!)
I
loved playing the “Mix these paints and see what colour we’ll get, it’ll be
reyt!”game. 😆
Now
I am also no colour-palette-knowledgable artist…
So
on occasions, we ended up with some very questionable colours for certain
rooms.
A
glaringly bright 1980s custardy yellow adorned one hallway.
But
it wasn’t as bad as the hideous minty green toothpasty chaos that one bedroom
ended up painted with!
Even
I was glad when the tenant covered that up with a dinosaur mural! 😱🦖
Thankfully,
those dodgy paints ran out, and since then, I now simply whiteout all the
rooms, perhaps with one coloured feature wall on a chimney breast if we feel
brave.
White
walls and ceilings are fresh, bright and airy, and are literally a blank
canvas.
Dodgy
decor is so last season - so choose your colours wisely! 🎨🖌
I’ve
admitted before: I’m not very good at visualising things that aren’t there.
So
when it comes to planning out where electrical sockets and switches should go,
in terms of planning out where the future imaginary furniture would be in a
house: mistakes, I’ve made a few!
Yes,
I’ve had light switches put on the wrong side of the door, so it opens onto the
switch instead of next to it. 🤦🏻♀️⚡️
Yes
I’ve not added enough plug sockets to rooms and had to have more retrofitted
afterwards. 🤦🏻♀️⚡️
The
worst mistake I made was putting a switch for a hallway inside a HMO room, with
the intention of converting that bit of hallway into a self-contained unit
kitchen bit… until I realised that I would then be billed for two sets of
council tax, so I scrapped that plan. 🤦🏻♀️ ⚡️
But
it was too late! The electrician had followed my orders, and now that hallway
-missing-switch-cos-it’s-in-that-room bit annoys me every time I see it! 🤦🏻♀️
If
you’re not earning, you’re learning, right?!
Here’s
the final property mistake I won’t be repeating, one I definitely learnt my
lesson from… the first and only time I did it!
In
my house of multiple occupancy, we were bringing a new room into use.
My
beloved Mummio was helping, in the days before we started employing
professional fitters - she’s a dab hand at laying the odd carpet in the odd
room.
I
was sent out to get a carpet for said large room.
Did
I go for a high-quality, hard-wearing, decently thick and lovely textured
carpet?
No:
I went purely on price and got a cheap, thin, corduroy-type carpet, at a
bargain price of just £39. 💥
And
when she saw the utter cheap tat I had bought and brought back, she went
absolutely nuts.
“Look
how thin this crap is, it’s like bleeding paper, I can cut it with scissors
it’s that thin. Don’t buy this sh!t again, we’re not having it.” 🤬✂️
And
that was me duly told.
But
of course she was right, because not only was it thin and poor quality, it
wrinkled and ruffled up once on the floor.
So
I never bought cheap crap carpets again! 🙄
That’s
why we don’t buy cheap rubbish, ladies and gentlemen, it’s false economy - you
get what you pay for 🤷🏻♀️
If nowt else, get better quality
stuff just to save the earache and stop your mum whining!
Remember… nobody gets everything
right first time every time. Mistakes are all part of learning, so embrace them
– and learn what those mistakes teach you!
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