what have I learned?

Well this has been my first project and I have learned an aweful lot of lessons that I can carry forward onto my next project.

1 Plan everything - plan the purchase, plan the development and most importantly plan how you are going to spend your money and your time. Budget and schedule are paramount to the property developer. I thought that I had a healthy budget, even including a contingency of 10% but even this turned out not to be enough.

2 Stay focused. It is easy to get emotionally involved in the property and end up adding expensive touches simply because you have always wanted one. You have to decide if the expensive wooden floors would not only appeal to your target buyers, but will they be willing to pay more for it?

3 Stay sensible. Make a list of the of all the jobs that you want to do and then sleep on it! Price each job and then decide if the job more than pays for itself in increasing the asking price. Always undertake essential work, being sensible about adding favourite touches and then completely ignore the unnessarily expensive ones.

4 Be realistic. You are never going to achieve a sales price considerably above the ceiling price in an area by simply adding more 'things'. If you are renovating a 2-bed terrace, fitting it out like a penthouse suite may actually alienate some of your possible buyers. And spending more on the development will not necessarily mean you will make more money on the sale!

5 Remember the 3 important numbers in property developing - the amount you bought the property for, the amount you spent on it, and how much you can sell it for. Everything else is eye candy! Keeping focused on this is what seperates the amateurs from the professionals - and this is not an easy game in a falling market.