Finances for the House Construction

Can you afford it? Cost Planning for your house construction project is one of the things that have to be carefully considered before everything else.

The quantity surveyor is the cost expert and will need to be engaged to get accurate building estimates. Once you have a definitive cost, ensure your finances can be able to fund your construction vision to completion.

Apart from the construction cost, large development projects will need to factor in other costs such as the cost of Land Purchase, cost of Finance (e.g interest rates if planning to borrow from bank), Professional Fees, Legal Fees, Preliminary Costs, Management Costs, Marketing Costs (If Development is for Sale) and the Anticipated ROI (Return on Investment).

For small residential projects, we already discussed how you can get a budgetary estimate for your dream home. There is abit of flexibility here since we’ve seen many people opting to build their homes in stages as they pool together resources, instead of waiting to get the full amount before they start. Ensure that the entire construction period is not prolonged as there are consistent overheads such as cost of security, that will be incurred even as the project lies idle and this could significantly increase your overall cost.

Weather

Kenya’s location at the equator means that we get pretty good weather with not much extremes. As a result, we have construction works going on throughout the year. The only thing you need to be wary of is the rainy period since certain tasks are best suited to be carried out when its dry.

Tasks such as earthworks and foundation works should be scheduled to be done during the dry season. Doing these when it’s raining will not only be more expensive but can further lengthen your construction period.

Excessive rain can also cause muddy conditions that make some construction sites inaccessible, posing a challenge during delivery of materials.

Most builders will work to get the roof and walls built when the weather is nice and dry since often a lot of interior work can proceed even with the onset of the rainy season.

Areas in North Eastern Kenya are prone to high winds which affect construction activities where cranes are involved. Carrying out roofing works when its windy is also hazardous for construction workers and these works will need to be planned for the calm parts of the day/year.

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The event was graced by various notable heads including Marwa Kitayama (MP from Kuria West), Emmanuel Wangwe (MP Navakholo) and Fred Ouda (Mp from Kisumu Central) as well as representatives from big firms across the Construction Industry including Cytonn Investments, TechnoConstruct Kenya, Howard Humphreys East Africa, and Mentor Management Limited just to mention a few.

The association having been launched just recently, used the event as an opportunity to highlight their achievements over the past few months as well as some of the challenges faced in their quest to regulate how project management is being practiced in Kenya.

In a previous post, I had explained why a construction manager is a key player in the overall success of projects and the financial gains that companies stand to make by employing one.Their management function and leadership is an important asset within the industry as they are responsible for keeping the project up to date, within budget and within acceptable quality standards.

Current trends in project delivery methods have seen a shift to design/build and EPC (Engineering-Procure-Contract) methods where the contractor takes on more more risk than he would have in a traditional design-bid-build.

This is expected to result in an increase in uptake of construction managers as many firms, in a quest to improve their market share and gain a valuable competitive advantage against other companies, will seek to offer turnkey project management among their range of services.

So who qualifies to be a construction manager?

Currently the course is being offered at degree level, labeled as Bachelor of Construction management, Bachelor of Science (Construction Management), Bachelor of Technology (Building Construction) or Bachelor of The Built Environment (construction management) in The University Of Nairobi, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Technical University of Kenya and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University.

The Construction Project Managers & Construction Managers Bill 2017 proposes that all construction professionals including project managers should be registered with ACMK before they can be cleared to undertake any construction work in the country.

If passed, the Bill will establish a board that will vet and approve construction and project managers and prescribe an examination they must pass before they are registered with the association.“Subject to the approval of the Cabinet Secretary, the board may, from time to time, formulate, vary and carry into effect schemes and curricula for education in construction project management and construction management,” states the Bill.

As one Bob Ochieng, a construction manager by profession, rightly put it, ” It is important to note that the recently emerging bills and construction laws in Kenya are largely borrowed from the South African Model, for reasons that it seems to work in Africa and secondly, Kenya has benefited immensely from her students who have over the past years sought further education and greener pasture in South Africa.

Globally, there are emerging technological advancement, challenges and newer ways of doing things effectively or conveniently. Drawn from the desire to harvest the best of these worlds into a Kenyan experience, South Africa, it seems, is emerging as the new benchmark upon which Kenyan progress shall be measured, especially in the Architecture Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector.”

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