Real estate renovators rehabilitate and remodel existing structures. It doesn’t matter if they’re professionals or amateurs. Contractors, architects, and engineers work as professional renovators in their own right or as part of a real estate construction firm that specializes in renovations. Anyone who undertakes a remodeling project, usually of a home, is considered an amateur. Identification, assessment, planning, budgeting, engineering, repairing, rebuilding, and refinishing are all part of the renovation process.
Renovations either restore a property to its previous state or update and remodel it to a more appealing design and functionality. Renovations can be done on either residential or commercial property. Renovations in the residential market typically focus on bringing a house built in a previous decade up to modern standards or restoring the property’s historic design features. Residential renovators might, for example, choose to restore a Victorian mansion to its former glory or gut a house with no artistic merit to modernize the layout and internal systems.
Commercial renovators alter or improve the functionality of income-producing real estate. A commercial remodeling of a school, for example, might include the addition of a gymnasium, the expansion of the cafeteria, or the installation of central air conditioning. An abandoned hospital could be converted into affordable housing through renovation. The renovation of historic properties is an exception. Work on landmarks and other historic structures focuses on restoring the property to its original state as closely as possible.
To complete a project, renovators usually follow an eight-step process. He starts by looking for a suitable property. In some cases, the cost of renovating a building exceeds its value, making it more cost effective to demolish the structure and construct something new. He must then assess the situation and determine the scope of work. Not every task that can be completed to update a property is financially worthwhile. Every project has a budget, and the renovator must strike a balance between wishes and practicality while staying within the project’s budgetary constraints.
The renovator creates a construction schedule and plan. Following the completion of these preliminary tasks, the renovation team repairs, rebuilds, and refinishes the property as planned. For example, renovating a Victorian-era home would entail determining which features, such as doors, floors, and windows, could be restored to their original state. Concerns about structural integrity would be addressed by engineering. Anything that was broken would be repaired or replaced, such as the roof or plumbing, and refinishing would attempt to reclaim original textures by stripping wood and paint.