By Bill Brown · Most private owners build or renovate a residence once or twice in a lifetime. The architect, the designer, and the contractor do it every day. Before the first contract is signed, a few decisions will shape the budget, the schedule, and the result more than anything that happens on site.
Start with the building, not the finishes
In a condominium, the association and the building's own rules come before your design. Many buildings require approval of the plans before work starts, limit the hours and days when work can happen, control the service elevator and the loading dock, and ask for the contractor's insurance and a deposit. Some restrict what can be opened up behind the walls and ceilings. None of this is unusual, but each requirement takes time, and the schedule your contractor gives you rarely includes it. Ask the management office for the renovation rules in writing before design is finished, and build the approval period into the schedule.
In many South Florida buildings the association is also carrying out its own inspections and repair programs. If the building is planning work on the facade, the balconies, or the common systems, find out when. It can affect access to your unit, the timing of your project, and what you should and should not replace.
Read the contract before you read the price
The contractor's number is only as good as the contract and the scope behind it. Before you compare prices, make sure every bidder has priced the same drawings, the same specifications, and the same exclusions. A low price that leaves out the kitchen equipment, the window treatments, or the permit fees is not a low price. Then read the contract itself: how changes are priced, what the contractor's fee is applied to, what happens if the schedule slips, how payments are tied to work in place, and when lien releases are delivered.
Allowances are where budgets drift
On a high-end residence, many of the most expensive items are not designed when the contract is signed. Stone, plumbing fixtures, lighting, hardware, and millwork are often carried as allowances: a placeholder number the contractor includes until the selection is made. If the allowances are too low, the budget is wrong from the first day, and every selection becomes a change order. Ask the designer to check each allowance against the level of finish you actually expect, and track every selection against it as it is made.
Decide who reports to whom
A residence has more parties than most owners expect: the architect, the interior designer, the contractor, specialty trades, audiovisual and security vendors, the building's management, and often a lender or a family office. Each one reports progress from its own point of view. The owner hears about a problem when it has already become a cost. Settle at the start who keeps the budget, who keeps the schedule, who approves changes, and who tells you, plainly and once a month, where the project stands.
Not here during the work
Many owners of South Florida residences live elsewhere for part or most of the year. If that is you, the gaps above get wider. Decisions wait for your next visit, change orders get approved by email without anyone checking the work, and the first sign of a problem is often a photo. Before work starts, decide who will attend the site and design meetings in your place, who will review pay applications and change orders before you approve them, and who will speak for you with the building's management. Then insist on one clear report each month, not a stream of messages from every party.
Why an independent owner's representative
An owner's representative sits on your side of the table and nowhere else. The role is to review the contractor's price and contract before you sign, hold the architect, designer, and contractor to the budget and schedule, review change orders and pay applications before you pay them, and report to you every month. It only works if the representative is independent. A firm that also builds, designs, or earns a percentage of the construction cost has a different interest from yours.
Aventra has no construction arm, no design arm, and no affiliated contractors. Our fees are fixed or a monthly retainer, quoted in writing before work starts, so our compensation never rises when the project's cost does.
Before you sign anything, get the building's rules in writing, make sure every price covers the same scope, test the allowances against the finish you expect, and decide who reports to you. Those four steps protect the budget more than any negotiation later.
We represent private owners of luxury homes and high-end condominium residences throughout South Florida, in new construction or full renovation, from our office in Coral Gables. If you are planning a project, start with one confidential conversation.
Bill Brown is the founder and CEO of Aventra Development and a Florida-licensed General Contractor. He was previously CEO of a century-old international construction management firm, where he directed hospitality, residential, and mixed-use programs across the Caribbean and Latin America. More about Bill or connect on LinkedIn.