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discounting and promotions to assure active management to maximize income. See Chapter 3, page
21 Busy Living.
Contract suite: we are drafting a contract suit for a Client who intends to self operate in the longer
term, the contract suite comprises three agreements:
(1) Fund to Developer, (2) Developer to Operator, and (3) Site Staff employment.
Research pieces: Ringley have undertaken 3 major research pieces:
Competing facilities analysis London vs Manchester in terms of ‘must have’ ‘nice to have’ ‘love to
have’
The male vs female perspective on renting via focus group research
Major employers and educational establishments
Customer insights: Ringley has also worked with insights and branding companies such as Mind Folio
and Silk Road.
2.15 Construction consultancy
We are part of design teams through RIBA stage 1 to 4. In these phases we are involved in the
detailed design of apartment layouts, impact on rents, durability of fixtures and fittings, appliance
requirements, plant reduction, and operational strategies such as refuse and window cleaning –our
role is a reality check of the what delivers durability and ease of maintenance to protect the gross to
net. We contribute to a wide range of issues from unit layouts, to bathroom pods and fittings, wet
cores for maintenance, access to spares lists for input into construction contracts. There is a growing
appetite and experience within project teams for modular construction.
One Client retained us to benchmark construction tender returns to identify areas for price
negotiation and are able to interpret QS build costs to validate an index linked CAPEX for those
wanting to hold a development long term.
2.16 Value Engineering-Design & Specification examples:
Ringley is thereby being present at multi-team design meetings where value engineering brought
forwards included:
Installing mirrors on the reverse of wardrobe doors to preserve walls & positioning of sockets
to enable use of said mirrors for drying hair,
Posing questions such as: do we need maintainable ventilation/circulation systems costing
circa £25pa each to maintain in units where windows are openable?
Challenging window cleaning strategy and advising on cost implications,
Challenging window design so as not to compromise ease of fitting/removing window
dressings,
Modelling the British Standard that applies to each plant item to advise on what can be put to
an on site Maintenance Engineer to drive down the gross : net leakage,
Recommending plant with less expensive parts or parts that can be cleaned in ‘end of tenancy
cleans’ e.g., kitchen extractors,
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