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TR U M P STR A TEGI ES FO R R E A L ESTA TE

similar opportunities to make unexpected improvements or cost sav-
ings. Like Trump, you need to learn as much as you can about every
aspect of the real estate business and construction. The more knowl-
edge you have about prices, costs, options, materials, real estate ser-
vices, and other factors, the more opportunities you have to reduce
costs and increase profits.
You can learn a great deal by staying in close communication
with the specialists you hire to work on your project, and encourage
them to speak their minds. Since you should only hire people with a
proven capabilities, listen to their advice but remember the final de-
cision should be yours. For example, I recommend you employ a good
architect to design plans and specifications. Every good architect is a
source of valuable real estate information but also has access to reli-
able general contractors (GCs) and the various trades used by other
clients. This is a great source of valuable contacts for you to investi-
gate. Find out who has built a building similar to the one you are
contemplating and learn who was used as the GC. Call that GC and
tell him of your desire to build a building and you’re considering him
or his firm for the job. You’ll undoubtedly get a list of the jobs for
which he acted as GC and the names of the owners. Get as much in-
formation as you can as to the anticipated costs, time for construc-
tion, and fees to be paid. Tell the GC that you’ll get back to him and
then check him out. Check the workmanship of the buildings for
which he or his firm was the GC. Speak to the owners of those build-
ings in a face-to-face meeting to find out the plusses and minuses of
the GC. Was he accurate in forecasting the budget? Was the job fin-
ished on time, if not, why not? What were the names of the subcon-
tractors who were employed for the various trades? How good were
they? Would you use them again? If you assemble the same informa-
tion from multiple sources, you’re on your way to creating your own
data base for future reference.

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