Builders and the Credit Crunch

Written 22 Dec 08

What a year 2008 has been for London home owners. Cuts on loans and credit, even for those with good a credit rating has resulted in right mess. Over 70% of London home owners have reconsidered doing that refurbishment, decorating or new building project they had been looking forward to because some big finance guys muddled things up. Well don't fret, Sterling Builders took this hand-me-down problem to heart and through hard work and a few late nights came up with a solution. 

Overview

Building contractors who are established and guarantee a perfect finish are the type of people you want to deal with in doing any home project.  Such contractors are also the ones affected by the current "crunch" because giving you the perfect finish means 1) full time project management 2) accurate administration of materials and logistics and 3) quality control. This reflects in extra costs on any project.

Situation

Overhead costs for well established building companies have resulted in discounts and "being competitive" to become non-existent over the past 2 years. Organising and carrying through a large (or even small) project is a precise action from the materials purchase to finance control and of course the labour.

How we handled this

Instead of going against the grain and pricing customers above what they can afford in the current economical climate, the solution was to cut overheads. This of course had to be done so as NOT to 1) drop service quality and 2) throw the current company and staff into a tizzy.

You should know that in cutting overheads we didn't:

• Lose any of our long-term, and expert tradesmen
• Cut down on any material costs (getting cheaper materials)

So, in face of a national economical crisis, we were able to adjust to give you the same perfect service as always. We have now moved our offices from Victoria and South Wimbledon to one central office. Our estimators ride motorbikes (when it is warm enough of course) for faster travel time and ease in London's infamous traffic. And not only that, our vehicles are equipped with new LPG (Liquid Petrolium Gas) systems cutting petrol costs in half.