Over 25 % of Malaysian homeowner had spent more than what they should and over budget in their renovation projects. If you are not fully prepared in research in your renovation project, you might become one of the 25%. Here are some small tips for you to avoid over budget in your renovation.
Set Your Budget Clear
It is a significant step for you if you have limited budget for your renovation project. First set yourself a bottom line of your budget. For example, 25k, 30k ,40k, then write down what you need for renovation, either normal living room renovation, kitchen renovation or others. Try to ask your family, friend or neighbor who has experience in renovation, as for their recommendation, price for renovation and contractor contact number if possible. Call up some contractor to visit your house to discuss your renovation and ask for quotation, or you could event search for answer in some local forum site to ask for experience users. Then find out the material price in your local area, know their pricing and type would help in your decision making for your renovation projects.
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Know Where You Spent
Renovations spend most in two elements, labor cost and the material. But in many cases the cost seems to be increasing itself, and when homeowner try to check it back where they have spent it, most of them have no idea as nothing much record has been done when they make the purchase. In Malaysia, many homeowners are too lazy to pick up the material themselves, so most of them leave the material purchases to the contractor. You will be lucky if you have met some honest contractor that mark up the material cost in a minimum way just to cover back their fuel cost, some tricky contractor might markup the price as their own profit, if this happen in this way. You were most probably to exceed what you are tried to plan in your budget. If you are lazy but you want to leave the buying task to contractor themselves, tell them to get you an receipt for the material, pay them with the receipt price and some cost on travelling and time would help. In other hand, you might encounter few contractors when you find someone for your renovation, try to find more contractors to analyze their average price. You will find some contractor charge a high price while other is incredibly low, ask them some question about the price offer. (Higher price are not necessary means best quality, low price does mean bad services), but it is better to avoid someone that offer you a unbelievable low price and which they will handle all the material buying, you will probably get a very low quality tiles for your home which you might regret in long term.
Set up Some Spare Cash on Your Hand
In many case, homeowner tend to calculate the renovation cost themselves, normally they calculate the labor cost of the renovation, material cost etc. But the more precise they tried to calculate the total budget they need, the bigger mistake they would make. There are far to more factor that could alter the cost of the renovation, for example, you might remove a wall on your kitchen and extend further it, but you eventually find that there is wire and pipe that install inside the wall, in that case, you might need to restructure the wire connection and the water supplier pipe, of course, those won’t be free for you as it is not in your original renovation plan, contractor might probably charge you on that as it cause more than what they should do. It is advice to spare some cash in between of 15 to 20 % of your total renovation cost to avoid any unexpected cases.
Reduce Unnecessary Renovation Cost
Many homeowners had complaint about their renovation going over budget. If you are very fresh to renovation related industry, you might need someone experience to help you on manage you renovation budget wise and carefully. It wasn’t hard to keep your renovation budget on fixed level; simply does some research in few things like material type and cost, renovator price and buying method. Pay for what is worth and affordable. For example, you are not necessary to bought branded but high touch price tiles for your home, find some suitable tiles that is moderate in price and durable will do (Work out with some research in forum or ask someone with renovation experience) .
In case you are still confuse about what to do or plan, visit us at Renovation Malaysia Marketplace for more information. We offer services such as site visitor, interior design for you house and help you to get quotation from vary contractors that near you. Visit us at Tukang.com.my today !