Something I hear people say a lot, particularly people who are new to property refurbishment, but also a surprising number of more experienced refurbishers, is that it’s impossible to find a good builder.
Now I have to say I’ve never really agreed with that, because I’ve always managed to find good builders. I think the key comes down to putting in a little bit of effort, and using a little bit of creativity when it comes to thinking about how to find them. But actually, in my experience, finding the builder isn’t the problem. What I’ve found much harder, and this is something you never hear anybody talking about, is how to keep a good builder. So that’s what I want to show you.
The first tradesman I found
I was very lucky, because on my very first refurb the very first tradesman I found turned out to be excellent. It happened like this. I went out for a drink one night with a friend who had nothing to do with property at all. He worked in IT, a computer programmer or something, but he knew I’d been made redundant and was starting my property business, and he was asking me all about it. I explained that I’d found my first property to refurb, and he said, well then, you need to get in touch with Trevor. He’s a friend of mine who’s a plumber and heating engineer, and he’s a great guy, I’ll introduce you if you like.
And of course for my refurb I did need a plumber and a heating engineer, so I gave Trevor a call. And Trevor was fantastic. He was always on time, he did what he said he was going to do, and he gave me help which went really above and beyond. For example, one of the bathroom walls was out of true, so he couldn’t fit the bath. What he suggested was that I use a tiler he knew, who he knew to be excellent, and who could not only do tiling but was actually quite good at plastering on occasion, and that the tiler would re-plaster the wall, making it true, so that the bath would fit. And that’s what happened. The tiler came, he plastered the wall, he tiled the wall, the bath fitted, and everything was good.
The builder on his hands and knees
The other good builder I found, which was by complete fluke by the way, happened like this. My managing agent rang up one day to say there was some damp in one of my properties and could they get it sorted, and of course I said yes. They said they were going to send somebody round to put in a new damp proof course, but not to worry, it was only in patches, it wasn’t the whole of the ground floor, just certain areas of walling. And I didn’t think very much of it.
Except that one Saturday I decided to go and look at the property to see how things were coming on, not knowing the builder was going to be there. It’s very unusual for a builder to be at a property at 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon. As I walked in I could see areas of wall where he’d hacked off the plaster up to about 3, 3 1/2 feet, which is what you’re meant to do. And there he was in the living room, on his hands and knees, chipping away the mortar between the lower courses of brickwork and putting in a slate damp proof course. One slate at a time, chipping the slates, putting each one in, making a solid barrier, definitely doing it the old fashioned way. And he obviously intended to spend the whole weekend doing it.
So I asked him, why aren’t you doing it the modern easy way? Why aren’t you using an injected damp proof course? And he said, because this is the best way of doing it, I trust it far more. I was so impressed by the quality of his work, and the price he was charging, which relative to the amount of effort he was putting in seemed fairly negligible to be honest, that I decided there and then that it made sense to make him my main go-to builder.
Where it started to go wrong
But this is where the lesson really started, and it’s the sad part, because this particular builder did let me down in the end. It’s a pattern I’ve noticed over the years. If you find a good builder and you look after them, they’re very, very enthusiastic at the start of the relationship, maybe for a year, maybe for two years. But then it often becomes the old story about familiarity and contempt. They begin to take things for granted, they become a little bit entitled in truth, a little bit demanding. They used to be on the job at 8 o’clock in the morning, and now they’re on the job at 9:30 or 10 o’clock, or they don’t turn up at all that day. Now, I can’t generalise about a whole group of people, but that has been my experience.
And other things creep in. The quotes get a little bit higher, which is hard to judge when materials really are going up in price, but it’s a hint, because within the general increase there’s a little bit more of an increase. Or they say they’re going to be there on Tuesday and you have to chase them on Thursday, and they say, sorry, I got called to another job, and you think, but you were booked in with me. Meanwhile the tenant’s been shouting about it for a week and you just want the job done.
Always inspect the work before you pay
So what do you do about it? Well, I think even knowing what could be coming down the line, you still treat them as well as you can. But one thing I’d recommend, and you’re going to say, oh Peter, this is obvious, is always inspect the work before you pay. Yes, it is obvious, but it’s very easy to slip out of when you start building a relationship with somebody and you get to that point of trust, which is important. After a year or 18 months of them doing spot on work every single time, you begin to not actually turn up and check.
You do need to make sure that things don’t slip. So somebody needs to inspect the work, and if there is something which isn’t done quite right, or something which isn’t finished, or something that’s been forgotten, then you must withhold part of the payment. Maybe you pay 80% of the bill, maybe 90% of the bill, maybe you withhold the whole payment until it’s all done properly. And yes, it does put noses out of joint, particularly when you’ve built that level of trust, but it’s a commercial relationship and they should expect it.
So what would I do differently today? I would make sure that the work is inspected every time they do a job, not just when you first start a relationship with them, not just after you’ve found that they’ve actually started to slip, but all the way through.
Have another builder lined up
Another thing which can be helpful is to have another builder lined up, just in case, because if your relationship with your main builder does start slipping, it can take time to find another good one. Now I wouldn’t necessarily be using them at the same time, and I definitely wouldn’t want them to know about each other, because if a builder thinks that they’re your builder, they’re going to be a bit miffed if they find out that you’ve also got another builder, in my experience.
You’ll probably part company after about 3 years
The other thing to be aware of, and to accept even when you first start with them, is that you’re probably going to separate after about 3 years anyway. That just seems to be how it works. There’s just this natural urge, I think, for people to move on and do something different, or to work with different people. And really there’s not very much you can do about that, but it is another good reason to keep your eye out for another good builder, so that you can slot them in as quickly as possible.
How I keep a builder happy
So how do you keep your builder happy? Well, when they do a good job, tell them. When they provide a quote, there’s no harm in saying, is that the best you can do, and going through it with them, but don’t try and squeeze them down to a stupidly unrealistic price. Everybody needs to make a living, including your very good builder, so allow them to do that.
When they finish the job, make sure it’s inspected quickly. Don’t keep them waiting for a week or two weeks. They need to be paid, and you can’t keep putting them off by saying I’m not going to pay you until I’ve seen the work, and then not turning up to look at the work. So get there as soon as they say they’re finished, and then pay them straight away.
And do the small things which make them feel valued. I remember my builder was very upset one time around Christmas, and I said to my managing agent, is everything okay? It turned out the builder was a little bit hurt because I hadn’t given him a Christmas present. His favourite tipple was a bottle of whisky, and that soon made everything feel alright.
In a future video I’m going to tell you a number of things you can do to find a very good builder, even starting from scratch, when you don’t know anybody in the trades. But the key point I want to make here is that when you do have a good builder, just make sure you look after them. It’s time well spent.
Here’s to successful property renovating.
Peter Jones
Author, property investor and ex-Chartered Surveyor
P.S By the way, I’ve completely rewritten and updated my course for 2026, The Successful Property Renovator’s Workshop — a comprehensive guide to renovating properties properly and profitably, based on my own experience across well over 150 projects over thirty years.
thepropertyteacher.co.uk/the-successful-property-renovators-workshop
