The year that builders became available - at last

Construction:Builders are eager to tackle home improvements after 10 years of a boom when homeowners had to beg to give them business. Emma Cullinanreports

HOMEOWNERS who've searched in vain for builders over the past decade now find that it is the builders who are contacting them. It happened to one man who recently put in for planning permission for an extension in Dún Laoghaire and another building a new house in Co Meath. The latter was also contacted by a builder's merchant offering a discount if he bought everything from their store.

This shows how the planning lists are proving a fruitful hunting ground for those in the building trade who don't have the volume of work that they used to now that major housebuilding projects are being put on hold while developers and buyers wait to see what the market will do.

Architects, too, are being approached by builders who are now available for work after the decade-long building boom.

"We are now getting one or two phone calls a week from contractors we've never worked with before, looking for work in the New Year," says John O'Keeffe of Dundrum based O'Keeffe Architects. "We haven't had contractors call us for any reason in eight or nine years so it's a massive change, especially since architects are pariahs as far as many builders are concerned!"

The timing couldn't be better, if you consider that home improvements have increased considerably in the past few years and are set to grow. "There are fewer cranes in the sky and more skips outside people's homes," says Martin Whelan of the Construction Industry Federation, whose figures show that residential repair and maintenance hit €4.5 billion in 2006, and predicts that this sector will be worth €4.9 billion by the end of 2007.

"Residential RMI (repair, maintenance and improvement) is set for a huge increase," says John McCartney, head of research at Lisney. "Looking at available figures, I feel that residential RMI value will be around 30 per cent higher at the end of 2008 than it was at the end of 2006."

There are a few reasons for this, he says, including the SSIA factor. "Now €15.8 billion worth of SSIAs have matured and a survey by the Financial Regulator in 2005 found that 13 per cent of SSIA holders wanted to spend the money on home improvements."

The upcoming energy rating of buildings, launching in January 2009, is also an incentive to improve existing homes, says McCartney.

"Anyone planning to sell or rent out in the spring season of 2009 will have to have an energy rating certificate and to make the property as attractive as possible, they will need to increase the amount of insulation and make other improvements.

"People also have a natural desire to make such changes because of the high cost of fuel."

The failure to reform stamp duty is another reason why people stay put and increase their living space, says McCartney. "So there is likely to be a big increase in extension building, which you can see coming through in planning figures. These show that in quarter 2 of 2006 there was an increase of 14.8 per cent but I think that is the tip of the iceberg because you don't need planning permission for extensions measuring less than 40sq m."

O'Keeffe, who works on both commercial and residential projects, says: "In the last two years there has been an enormous turnaround in the number of people seeking extensions as they find that the house they are in has a lot of shortcomings; "they perhaps don't have enough storage or the space doesn't operate in a way that suits their family life".

He points out that many houses built in the past 10 years are so compact, with little outside space, that they are complicated to extend and sometimes aren't worth spending money on. He has also noticed, in assessing houses for prospective clients, that much building work doesn't comply with regulations which will lead to problems when it comes to selling on.

"That attic conversion may not be able to be counted as an extra bedroom, because it doesn't comply with building regulations, so the price will drop accordingly," he says. "The contractor has done what he can get away with and the client wants it to cost as little as possible, but instead of spending lots of money on fantastic bathroom tiles, the money would have been better spent on someone to check the work," he says.

Liam Brennan, an architect with Extend, which was set up in response to the demand for extensions, says that he has noticed an increase in talented workmen. "The better tradesmen are being freed up from bigger sites."

To ensure that you get quality workmanship, Whelan of the CIF says you should seek references and view other work that the builder has done and perhaps speak to former clients.

"Have a clear agreement from the outset about what is to be done, the timescale and the likely cost. When work starts, keep the lines of communication open with the builders so that little problems don't turn into big problems.

"I wouldn't always go for the cheapest quote - this is your home so you want the best person to work on it," he says.

But the good news is that the cost for everyone should come down now that builders are actively seeking work; we've all noticed the increase in flyers being put through doors and builders' contact details being posted up on sites.

"The drop in prices hasn't happened yet but we are expecting it," says O'Keeffe, "and having spoken to colleagues it looks as if value will come back into construction.

"Small domestic work hasn't had anything like what I would call value for money. You could say it represented market value but you couldn't have said it was good value."