Started the new year with a basement development south of the city. Not my normal project, drive time, tiny value, new jurisdiction and business licence. I’ve reminded myself how hard it can be to fixed price bid a job. You’ve got to have a degree of omnipotence to get anything right at the planning stage. No budget ever is as accurate as it should be, within say 5% of actual. You could spend days and days estimating work and still overlook some detail. Make sure that contingency line item is in there!
The interface where old meets new at the basement development. A pleasant place to be in January, clean and well lit even. Basement development is a good introduction to home building. I never bothered with learning renovations, instead I jumped into a custom house and then into seven figure budget multi family build. That was hard! A basement is a much easier way to grow a trade network and practice management and budgeting. I generally don’t do any projects with a budget of under $500k, but once in a while I don’t mind a little side hustle.