Thinking Of Building Or Renovating?—Here’s What You Should Know First
Dear Student,
Are you thinking that after renting for a while in your new home overseas, you might like to invest not in buying a home of your own, but in building one?
Or perhaps you’re dreaming of acquiring a labor of love? Something charming, old, historic, and in need of a facelift?
On this score, I sympathize.
I’m drawn to old houses in the way that some women are attracted to new shoes. I’m a romantic. More than what’s in front of me, I see what what’s in front of me has the potential to become. This can be a dangerous habit when it comes to buying real estate in a foreign country.
Take our home in Ireland, for example. It was a 200-year-old stone farmhouse that had been vacant for more than four years. The previous owner had been an elderly woman who’d lived in the house alone for decades while it fell slowly to ruin around her. After her death, the rate of deterioration accelerated. When I walked in for the first time, though, I didn’t see the mold growing on the walls or the rot eating away at the wooden door frames. I saw classic Georgian symmetry complemented by high ceilings, ornate moldings, a grand central staircase, original wood plank floors, and built-in shutters on all the oversized windows that opened, in every direction, to views of rolling green fields embroidered with low stone walls and centuries-old hedgerows. The best of Irish country life, just what we’d come to Ireland to find. Sure, the place needed a little work, but what a great project, to restore this stately structure to its original Georgian splendor.
Irish banks don’t require a formal inspection of any piece of property they lend you money to buy. Still, we thought we ought to have one. We asked our estate agent to recommend an inspector, whose eventual report puzzled us. Rather than detailing required upgrades to the electrical wiring or gaps among the slate tiles on the roof, the report suggested that the “décor could be modernized.” We didn’t disagree, but we were surprised the inspector found little else to comment on. We took this as an encouraging sign and bought the place.
Friends recommended a general contractor, Noel, to help with the modernizing we wanted to carry out. We met Noel at the house one cold, drizzly morning and began showing him around. “We’d like to build in cabinets here,” I explained, “and bookcases at the top of the stairs. We want to replace the tub in the master bathroom and the shower in the guest room and then paint and paper throughout.”
Noel nodded but kept silent. He continued on, along the hallways, from room to room, with us following behind. Finally, Noel declared: “I’d say you need a damp guy.”
“Excuse me,” I replied. “A damp guy?”
“I know a good one.”
“Okay. Would you put us in touch?”
A few days later, on another cold, drizzly morning, we stood outside the heavy front door to the old stone house waiting for Noel’s damp guy, who approached, finally, with a screwdriver in his hand. He tipped his woolen cap to me, then headed toward the living room, where he began poking his screwdriver into each piece of wood he passed. The window casings, the shutters, the skirting boards at the bases of the walls, the frames of the doors to the patio… the little Irishman poked and poked, his look growing graver after each thrust. From the living room to the dining room, through the kitchen and up the stairs, Noel’s damp guy made his way through the entire house, poking and frowning as he went.
“Rising damp,” he declared solemnly. “All throughout.”
We didn’t know what rising damp was, but we were pretty sure from the look on the damp guy’s face that its presence wasn’t good news.
The damp guy turned to leave. “Uh, wait, sir, please,” I stuttered. “What should we do?”
“Got to treat it,” he replied as he walked out the door.
I called Noel.
Rising damp, it turns out, is a common phenomenon throughout the Emerald Isle and the U.K., where damp from the constantly wet soil seeps into the foundation of a house and then rises up the walls until gravity gets the better of it. Left untreated, damp will rise, we learned, about six feet before the force of gravity halts its progress. In our house, it’d been left untreated for a very long time, meaning, Noel explained, we had to blast away the interior plaster back to the stone from the base of every wall to a height of six feet. The exposed stone would be injected with a chemical to treat the mold, then sealed, then the wall would be repaired using plaster treated to withstand further damp.
Blast they did, Noel’s crew, with jackhammers, for days and days, until every plaster wall had been made dust. At first, I’d visit every second day or so to check on the work. After a while, I couldn’t face the mess and resorted to phone calls with Noel, who reported his men’s progress to me, as they blasted, then treated, then sealed, then…
No, no, not so fast. Just when I thought the demolition was complete, and the time had arrived finally to begin rebuilding, Noel explained that the next step in treating a bad case of rising damp (ours was one of the worst he’d ever seen) was to tear out all the wood. Every piece, every panel, from the floorboards to the baseboards, from the window casings to the doors and the shutters, it all had to be ripped out, treated, then replaced. If the rot was too bad, a new piece had to be made to fit.
Week after week, we watched as the charming Georgian country house we’d bought was reduced to rubble inside. Meantime, I discovered that I was pregnant, and our sense of urgency about the planned move into bigger country quarters increased. What we thought would be three or four weeks of carpentry, painting, and wallpapering turned into what we’ve come to refer to as our first “total gut job,” a project that, in the end, took nearly two years to complete. I insisted we move in before the baby, our son, Jack, was born, which meant we spent our first month in the house holed up in the master bedroom, the one dust-free room, without a real kitchen and with but one working bathroom.
That’s what it means to undertake a renovation in a foreign country. We so enjoyed the experience that we undertook another one when we moved to Paris several years later. “How bad could this be?” we thought. There’s no rising damp in Paris.
No, but in a 300-year-old building, like the one where our Paris apartment is located, there are other problems. Again, we intended to add a bathroom and paint but ended up redoing the plumbing, the heating, and the wiring throughout the entire apartment. A project expected to take two months took eight and cost two and a half times as much as we’d budgeted.
In all, over the past couple of decades, I’ve been involved in 10 renovation projects in 6 countries.
Here’s the first thing I’ve learned (and that you should know): It always takes longer and costs more than you think it will. Lief and I now count on twice as long and two times as much. That way, sometimes, we’re pleasantly surprised by the actual outcome.
The second thing I’ve learned is that it’s madness to undertake a renovation long distance.
That’s not to say I haven’t managed a renovation in one country from another or that I wouldn’t do it again. I’m saying only that the idea qualifies as nuts. If you decide to pursue it nevertheless, budget for the cost of your travel for site inspections at critical points and engage someone you trust in-country to visit the property regularly, at least weekly and certainly before you make the final payment to the contractor. Have your on-site representative send you regular reports, including photographs.
The gentleman who restored the 150-year-old Spanish colonial house we called home in Casco Viejo, Panama, in one of our first years living in the country didn’t do this. He opted not to engage an independent overseer. I can imagine his reasoning. He’d invested a great deal in the project, including high-end fixtures in the kitchen and the bathrooms, hardwood floors, and wooden shutters on every window. It’s a beautiful three-story house that probably cost him considerably more to restore to the current standard than he ever imagined possible. Frustrated by the cost overruns, I believe, he opted not to engage a third party to inspect the property upon completion, and he didn’t return to the country himself to sign off on a final punch list.
We were the first people to inhabit the house following the renovation. Our first week living there, we discovered more than a dozen punch-list items that any U.S. inspector would have cited but that here, in the land of mañanas and fiestas, went unnoticed—including no hot water in the guest bathroom, because the hot water pipe was clogged with plaster dust; no hot water in the first-floor powder room, because the sink was never plumbed for it; a lighting fixture positioned in the ceiling of the master bedroom in such a way that the door to the room could not be closed; no door frame around the bathroom door for the second bedroom; and, most difficult for us to correct, improper wiring from the street to the house, meaning the installation of telephone and internet was at first feared impossible.
These are the kinds of things that can happen when you oversee a renovation in one country from a base in another.
The third thing I’ve learned about undertaking a renovation in a foreign country is that you’re typically better off working with professionals. I’ve managed renovations using off-the-books laborers (Romanians in Paris, Colombians in Panama). Working this way saves money but adds additional risk and management burden. I would do it again, though, on a case-by-case basis.
I’ve also once undertaken a renovation with a nonprofessional contractor. This not only adds risk and hassle but doesn’t save money in the end, I’d argue, because if the top guy doesn’t know what he’s doing, you’re going to have to pay for his mistakes. This I would never do again.
My most successful experiences have been when I’ve engaged a general contractor with long experience renovating specifically the kind of property in question, be it a 200-year-old Georgian country house in Ireland or a 150-year-old French colonial building in Panama’s historic Casco Viejo district.
My next project was a long-distance renovation in Medellin, Colombia, that I completed while still living full-time in Panama City. I travelled to Medellin every few weeks during the year or so it took to complete the work. In Colombia, the costs of both labor and materials are so low that I was able to carry out a high-end renovation of an interesting apartment in an older building for much less than it’d cost to build something comparable in Medellin today. These are the circumstances under which a renovation can really make sense.
Perhaps, though, your dream is not to renovate something old but to construct something new, custom-suited to your lifestyle. This was the case with my friend Ann.
Ann had dreamed her whole life of living in the Caribbean. Finally Ann and her husband, Mike, were able to realize their aquamarine fantasies when they launched a new life on Ambergris Caye off the coast of Belize. Even though they weren’t ready to take up full-time residence on the island right away, they were committed to their long-term future here and ready to set about creating their dream home at the beach. Ann and Mike bought a lot and drew up house plans.
Their situation was complicated because Ann had just taken a new high-powered job with a big international company, meaning she’d be traveling a lot and fully occupied. At the same time, Ann and Mike realized that building a house in another country long distance would be about as crazy as renovating a house in another country long distance. Their solution was for Mike to move to San Pedro town on Ambergris Caye full-time, while Ann stayed back in San Francisco where they’d been living and where she was continuing her climb up the corporate ladder.
“Mike made regular trips back to the States,” Ann explains. “He wanted to check in with me, but these were also buying trips. He’d come home to purchase whatever he needed but couldn’t find in Belize. It wasn’t easy living apart, but we agreed it was critical that Mike be in San Pedro full-time, to make sure that the construction work was done according to our plans.
“Made primarily of concrete block, the house (we named it ‘Mi Casa’) is built to last,” Ann continues. “Its structure and integrity were tested early when Hurricane Keith swept through San Pedro in October 2001. Mike watched as a section of our not-yet-completed roof floated away down the street. The local insurance company paid up, quickly and efficiently. And, more important, of course, Mike came through without a scratch.
“One of my favorite design elements in the house is the spacious outdoor-living area. We have both front and back verandas. Verandas are an important part of a home in Belize. Ours provide the perfect place to relax in a hammock and enjoy the view of the Caribbean Sea to the east and of the peaceful lagoon to the west.
“Another important thing to remember when designing a home in the islands is to position the structure, the windows, etc., to take advantage of the prevailing Caribbean breezes. Mi Casa’s windows and doorways allow the balmy breezes to provide natural ventilation. Beautiful woods are plentiful and reasonably priced in this part of the world. With the help of a Belizean friend, Mike was able to find hand-carved mahogany doors in Guatemala. He used a mix of Belizean hardwoods to add warmth and depth to the ceilings. Local craftsmen built most of the cabinets and furniture from local mahogany. The best part is that these custom-designed pieces cost much less than you’d pay for prefabricated wood furniture in the States.
“Building a house in a foreign country is stressful enough. Our situation was made more stressful by our separation. Whenever I came to visit, I was yearning for a tranquil vacation. What I got was regular 7 a.m. wake-up calls from workers drilling and sawing. Some mornings I was driven nearly to tears by the noise and the commotion. Several of the crew slept on cardboard beds at the site. They rose with the sun and hit the ground running. They were ready to work from sunup to sundown. This was great, of course… unless you were seeking escape from the corporate fast track, as I was.
“Frankly, I didn’t have much time to swing in the hammocks back in those days. Part of each of my ‘vacation’ visits was spent hunting for local furnishings and décor. We did make time during each visit, though, for a few days at a dive resort on a remote island. This was my chance to indulge my appreciation for Belize’s exotic underwater landscape and sea creatures.
“For his 50th birthday, I treated Mike to a few days at the Caves Branch jungle resort. We floated on inner tubes down a river that carried us through caves where mysterious Mayan rituals were performed centuries ago. We slept in a simple but lovely cabana. Only a screen separated us from the jaguars that prowled the surrounding jungle. These adventure trips helped to compensate for the chaos of construction at Mi Casa. And if you were to ask me today for a single piece of advice on building a home in another country, it’d be this: Make sure to allow yourself time to enjoy your new home while you’re building your new house. Don’t be overwhelmed by the work of what you’re doing. Give yourself time to play and to enjoy what this new part of the world has to offer.”
If you, like me, are interested in the idea of renovating something old and charming into your new home overseas… or if you, like Ann and Mike, are thinking you might like to build your own home once you’ve identified your overseas paradise and are ready to settle into it…here are 10 things to remember:
- Be sure you have the time, the money, and the enthusiasm to complete the project. Frankly, purchasing a condo or house is a much easier option. Building new and renovating are a lot of work.
- Understand that any home-construction or -renovation project is going to exceed your budgets for both time and cost. Count on it.
- If you can’t be on-site full-time, you need a plan to protect your investment when you are absent. You need security. You can go high-tech and install a security system, or you can go low-tech and provide quarters for a live-in caretaker.
- Investigate the track record and the reputation of any contractor you consider. Your contract is only as good as the person with whom you enter into it. Some things are universally true. A contractor eager for work (anywhere in the world) may underestimate the cost. Once the project is under way, you really have no choice but to continue paying the bills, even when they exceed your expectations. Enforcement of contractual price can be difficult after the project has begun.
- Be sure the construction supervisor can communicate with the workers in their language. Even though English is the primary language in Belize, for example, many of the construction workers are Spanish speakers from Central America or Mexico. In Paris, our crew was Romanian and spoke only Romanian.
- Develop a formal set of plans and stick with them. The workers need direct and constant supervision. If uncertainty sets in about how to do things, nothing gets done right.
- In many developing markets, laborers’ wages are typically paid in cash weekly. Many construction workers are temporary residents who follow the work and do not establish bank accounts. You need a good cost-tracking system to monitor cash flow.
- Not only the crew, but your contractor, too, even if he’s a good one, needs to be monitored throughout the entire process.
- Even if you’re present on-site most of the time, and you’re monitoring and managing the crew and the contractor directly, count on misunderstandings and difficulties. Many contractors take on small side jobs while they’re working a big job (such as the construction of your home). It is easy for them to mix up funds and materials. Review all invoices carefully to assure your materials aren’t sent to another project site, for example. You’ve also got to monitor construction payments and expenses carefully. Take my advice: Pay materials suppliers directly, as the materials are needed. Don’t pay your contractor, for example, and then have him pay the supplier. The more direct control you have down the line, the better.
- Use local materials and appliances whenever feasible. Replacement parts are more readily available for locally purchased products, and local tradesmen are more familiar with installation, operation, and repair of local products. Plus, local products are designed to stand up to the local climate—humidity, salinity, and other local conditions.
Kathleen Peddicord
Your New Life Overseas Coach