Why are all the builders’ merchants across the country not dealing with queues of builder’s vans in their yards? Why are the trade counter queues not constantly six or seven deep like the good old days of the Celtic Tiger? What’s really the problem?
Believe it or not, it can be summed up in one word. Risk.
As a former estate agent from Mayo, I have a unique perspective on the problems faced by all stakeholders – from site to homebuyer in the case of new builds and from vacant property to similar new buyers, in the case of renovation projects.
It has always amazed me how slow and bureaucratic our sales processes are – a relic of a bygone era when financial risk was utterly different to what it is today.
What I’m referring to here is the fact that it has always been the home builder and by extension the builder’s merchant who shoulder significant risk in bringing homes to the market in the hope that between the time they start building and start selling, things have not taken a turn for the worse. (Materials cost fluctuation, anyone?)
In the current environment many builders and/or their potential financiers are so afraid of risk – that they cannot take the plunge and buy that vacant home to flip or have a go on that seven-acre site? Many of you watch frustrated as perfectly good vacant homes head into dereliction or perfectly good sites lie vacant. We could be building, only for the mountain of risk we, as a nation, expect our small builders and builders’ merchants to shoulder.
But we can change things. Easily, as it happens. Enter Homebuyer’s Hero – a platform to lower the level of risk in the housing market. Co-founded by Dr Constantin Gurdgiev, economist, and I, we have been researching processes and market interventions for nearly a year. Now, with all we have learned, we are shortly launching a platform which derisks all manner of construction projects by securing the buyers first.
Is it really that simple? Well, almost. It involves new legal frameworks and new ways to bind buyers to a project. It provides a low cost, transparent process for builders to decide if they should pursue an opportunity. Very significantly, it offers a new way to assess the financial viability of a project at the outset.
I am very impressed with HAI’s proactive approach to its Empty Homes Proposal document. These suggestions as well as very recent government interventions take us a part of the way back to action on housing. Homebuyer’s Hero will close the last mile by greatly reducing risk for homebuilders so they can consider taking on projects again without undue risk.
Crucially for builder’s merchants this will get projects moving up and down the country.
As I write, our new platform homebuyershero.com is in final testing stage. As such, I have prepared a short survey hosted off-site at to guarantee access, as we finalise our new presence.
There are a few short questions for you to answer. You are all in a position to help yourselves and your customers in the industry and we are here to enable a new, free-flowing property market which benefits everyone in the country. Let’s get to work – start by visiting that link!
Colm Casey, co-founder & CEO colm@homebuyershero.com Direct mobile: 087-7529313 https://homebuyershero.com
Colm Casey: Colm is a former second generation estate agent having grown up in a family business ranging from building design, planning and construction supervision through to estate agency. He has a good working understanding of new build and renovation projects from initial ideation to final sale, as well as the pressures – financial and otherwise – which accompany them. Colm has blended this understanding of our industry with his life long love of technology to figure out new interventions enabled by tech, for the property market.
Dr Constantin Gurdgiev: Constantin is a world renowned economist, Associate Professor at University of Northern Colorado, Monfort College of Business and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Trinity Business School, Trinity College, Dublin. Constantin is widely recognised for his frank, open, honest and accurate assessment of events arising from the crash of 2008 and is further recognised for his deep understanding of the Irish property market, among a great many other fields of study. His charity work includes being Chairman and co-founder of the Irish Mortgage Holders Association as well as being a board member and co-founder of iCare Housing.
