Software for developing a property?

ptang

Hi all

I'm wondering if there is any decent software out there for doing property development. Something that will guide me through the likely steps, set deadlines, track finances, & provide templates for relevant figures etc.

Much appreciated

JQ.

Microsoft Excel. You need to work it out for yourself as each development will be different and Excel will do everything you need.

There is software available (Argus is one provider) but licences cost £000's.

Doozergirl

My husband calls it "the wife"

I use different packages for different things but none are cheap - it's upwards of £700 for decent estimating software alone so you need to be doing it a lot to get payback. Financials, you need to use Sage for clarity with your accountant really. I've used other financial packages that are supposed to be more developer friendly for Tax purposes, but you have to pay a fortune for support as no one else knows how to use it, so I went out and bought Sage which I prefer anyway.

Your best bet is good old Excel for the time being. You can do anything with it, with decent training.

PasturesNew

Doozergirl wrote: »

Your best bet is good old Excel for the time being. You can do anything with it, with decent training.

Excel can even produce Gantt charts.

ptang

thanks. i've got an irrational fear over xl, guess i just need to get stuck in. i had hoped there would be something that involved the steps necessary to go through, but guess i can find that elsewhere and apply it to the dreaded xl. cheers all

mariya5321

For real estate development software contact to software provide company, In UK Commercial agency software and many other software company providing the property management and development software for building purpose.

poppysarah

Isn't there a chart in one of the Sarah Beeny books. (It's got info on timings etc too)

There's nothing a huge wall chart with coloured sticky dots can't sort out.

Owain_Moneysaver

You can do a lot with a big wall chart with sticky dots. And a whiteboard. You will need:

- a big (A4 day per page) Site Diary in which you note everything: weather, who is or is not on site, deliveries received, phone calls made/received etc.
- triplicate book for site instructions (in the trade this is called Variation Orders) - every instruction you give to carry out work, amend a specification, supply or return materials gets written in the book, top copy for Them, middle copy for You, bottom copy in the book as Record.
- camera, everything gets photographed before and after work

If you want to use software then:

Design Drawings - Professional architecture software like Arcon costs thousands, but cut-down versions can be had for £30 as 'home design' packages. Get something compatible with what your architect uses, then you can open and print drawings, turning on/off layers etc as needed, even if you don't do your own

Accounting - you need a package that can split supplier invoices across categories for analysis, and if new build handle VAT reclaim. Turbocash Kashflow

Project Management - for tasks, dependencies, gantt charts you need a PM package. Free ones listed here.