Archive for September, 2009
September 30th, 2009 | 
Author: Designing the floor plan of a franchise location is one of the most important steps a franchisee will complete in the franchise process. It is essential to have your store setup in a way that it not only functions with your specific business but also sends the right message to potential customers. If your store is too crowded, poorly lit, or unorganized, it could deter customers. Although the specifics of your floor plan will greatly vary based on the type of franchise you open and the location you choose, there are still a few tips anyone should consider when drawing up a floor plan.
Understand The Requirements of Your Franchisor
Franchises frequently have extremely strict guidelines when it comes to floor plan design. In fact, some even provide downloadable sample floor plans that their franchisees must use. Additionally, some franchisors even have “floor plan consultants” that are available to give advice and help prepare floor plans.
Take Accurate Measurements
Before preparing the floor plan you should take accurate measurements of your site. Make sure these measurements are 100% accurate. Remember it never hurts to double check, or even triple check, your measurements. Having these measurements will allow you to draw an accurate floor plan that will let you maximize the available space.
Identify Physical Changes Immediately
Sometimes you will not need to make any physical improvements to the site, but if you do it’s important to get them completed in a timely manner. That way there will be no physical changes or construction to worry about when it’s time to start moving your furniture.
Know The Site Inside & Out
You need to know your site inside and out. Be mindful of light fixtures, electrical outlets, phone lines, etc. Many of these amenities will be essential in how you lay out your store. There is no point in having a computer desk setup on a wall where there are no outlets or a reception desk where there are no phone lines. If caught early, many of these small details can be fixed fairly inexpensively and will spare you major headaches later in the move in process.
Submit As Soon As Possible
Submit a sample floor plan to your franchise headquarters as soon as you have it completed. Floor plans almost always need to be approved by franchisors, and there are no guarantees on how long it will take them to get back to you.
In Atlanta, there’s a certain allure to buying a new home as opposed to what’s called in the industry a “resale” home. There are several different ways to buy new. You can buy new construction in a planned community, choose a pre-built home, buy a new, finished home or choose a custom home builder and start with your own blueprints. Your choice of how to buy a new home will depend on a great many factors including your pocketbook and your style. If you’ve decided that you want to buy new, you’ve got many options among the builders who specialize in custom homes in Atlanta.
Build on Your Own Land
If you’re building on a budget, one money-saving option is to build on land that you own. You’ll still have multiple options for new home styles, including pre-built and custom built homes and other custom home options that are in between the two. Modular home construction is an option that has come a long way in the past decade. Many builders will work with you to customize and personalize pre-built and modular homes and make them reflect your own personal style.
Buy preconstruction homes.
Planned communities are among the most popular of new custom homes in Atlanta. Most of us think of “planned communities” in terms of cookie cutter houses, but that doesn’t reflect today’s realities at all. Most communities are built on several basic styles with lots of room for customization. When you buy new custom homes in the pre-construction stage, you get the most out of the opportunities to customize the look and style of your new home. The earlier in the construction phase that you buy into the community, the more options you have for input into the design process.
What are preconstruction homes?
Development of planned communities happens in several stages with options to buy at different places. Developers need to raise money at various stages in the construction process, and the earlier that you choose to buy a “unit” in the development, the more say you have over design choices. Buying in the preconstruction phase will also give you considerable financial advantage. Often, if you buy your home in the pre-construction phase, you can get it for 70-80% of the price you’ll pay for the exact same home once it’s finished.
Buy during an early construction phase.
Although it won’t save you quite as much, buying a new home during an early construction phase of a new community development is a good way to get a bargain on custom homes in Atlanta or anywhere else. Developments are built in several phases, with the homes that sell during each phase of building priced accordingly.
Generally, phase one is the preconstruction phase, starting before ground is broken. You’ll be buying based on an artist’s rendering of your new home. Each successive phase will be timed according to a landmark in building or selling of homes in the community. As each phase is completed, the cost of each unit will increase. You can save 15-20% of the final purchase price of your new home by buying in an early phase of construction.
Consider a “systems built” home.
The wave of the future in custom home building appears to be building systems, where a new home is constructed of pre-built systems that are put together at the home site. The most familiar of these for most people are “modular homes” which are completely finished offsite, with only the foundation built on site.
Those are just the furthest extension of the idea of system building, though. Panelized home building systems may include just the basic structural elements of a home – the framing of the walls and roof, for instance – or they may be fully finished with doors, windows and even appliances. Each component is completed off site, shipped to the home site and assembled on site by an experienced builder.
Because much of the work is completed in a climate controlled factory setting, using building system components eliminates many of the most common reasons for construction delays and cuts costs considerably. The degree of customization possible varies from package to package. Working with an experienced builder of custom homes in Atlanta will give you the highest degree of flexibility with the minimum of delays and frustrations.
If you’re looking at custom homes in Atlanta, discuss the above options with your builder and/or realtor. You may find that it’s far less expensive to own a beautiful, brand new, custom built home than you ever imagined.
Everyday, possible home buyers are calling me about Temecula and Murrieta foreclosure homes. The foreclosure market is a hot topic at this time with market conditions being what they are, so I am taking a moment to put down my thoughts for Temecula Valley foreclosure home buyers thinking about buying. The initial point to realize is that in a poor credit or lending situation you will see foreclosures and short sales popping up.
Often people dread this situation, it comes up very rarely and is a major opportunity for them to take a major financial leap. The conditions necessary for a foreclosure market center around a decent sized percentage of equity loss, over supply of homes available, and a restricted or limited amount of qualified buyers. Right now, we have all three of these and it is a safe bet to say that we will be in a a foreclosure real estate market for the next year.
It is a short sale and foreclosure market that starts people strongly examining foreclosures over other homes. Why? Because they find great homes and save lots of money. Solid and approved buyers are rare in our current credit market. Due to this fact, approved buyers can get incredible on Murrieta and Temecula homes in foreclosure.
However, often people assume any home in foreclsoure is a deal but that is not very realistic. Many times homebuyers need to see the truth in regards to Murrieta and Temecula Valley foreclosed homes. When working with Temecula Valley foreclosures, three bulletpoints that will aid you guarantee what you find is a good investment:
Top-Line and knowledgeable real estate representative
Get numbers and approval on necessary loan
Make sure you consider how to value the long term value
First, it is paramount that you have a knowledgeable Temecula Valley real estate expert working for you. You are shopping for a home, so the broker’s service is 100% free of charge and is incredibly valuable to you. They will help you target the properties, detail out the pluses and minuses of different properties in terms of which is the better investment.
Any agent worth their name will use their experience to investigate the total investment value and team up with escrow and loan partners to make sure everything flows in concert. Just make sure that the Temecula Valley real estate broker you select actually has foreclosure experience and success.
The next step, is to get your team in place by choosing and getting pre-qualified with a loan officer that is fluent Temecula, Murrieta, Wildomar, and Menifee bank foreclosed home sales. The chosen lender needs to be able to react quickly and highly competitve rate wise. I have always thought of a buyer as the the big team boss, who then hires a team leader.
In this case the quarterback is the real estate broker and then lending or loan broker would be the the tailback on the squad. Many times your real estate agent or broker will be able to offer some names for you to evaluate that they have had good transactions in the past. With a Temecula Valley home foreclosure, the real estate broker and loan officer have to be in sync or you may miss the best long term investment opportunities.
This is where we get to the third important step in buying a foreclosure home, weighing the pros and cons. This is where a great broker goes into action and begins breaking out some important foreclosure investment values. For example, how much work is needed on each? Which home has a superior lot location inside the development and what are the other properties like? Has either foreclosure been damaged? Is there any criminal events at the either property or past insurance claims? What is the property tax rate of each property and how do they contrast with each other?
Those variables and others need to be examined thoroughly, in a small period of time to work out the superior investment value. Often people purchasing a Temecula foreclosure house just assume they will get a great deal. Perhaps they see a Temecula banked owned home that is $60k under the last few sales in the community, so it is a excellent opportunity. However, if it is in need of any major repairs, has a marginal lot, or is positioned poorly in the tract (facing a main road, etc.) its total valuation is severely affected.
But lets say that the Murrieta property is the ideal 3-car garage style in the home development, has a big lot on a cul-de-sac, but needs carpet, paint and some minor yard repairs, I am going to send it over to my homebuyer. A good broker will be detail oriented and examine the school system, look for value-added options like a view, or check crime statistics, etc. Because when all is said and done the Murrieta home has the combination of value features that make it by far the best bet over the foreclosure home in Temecula.
The last key that plays a large part in buying any good Temecula, Murrieta, Menifee, or Wildomar foreclosure home is time. How long will you take to get an offer in? Will some other homebuyer beat you to the punch? You have your squad in place, the broker has foreclosure home background, and your financials are pre-approved and just waiting. All that is vital because the best Temecula foreclosed home deals go FAST! Make sure you know the payments, know your contingencies, and are set to go. Be smart and fully understand the valuation and investment potential of a foreclosure purchase, you will do fantastic in today’s market!
A new building survey software was announced to the market with an innovative approach to support appraisers, insurance inspectors, architects, real-estate agencies, flooring installers and anyone who needs digitized drawing and to calculate the area and perimeter of a floor plan even on-site. The OrthoGraph Architect software supports professional building surveys, incorporating floor plan using a mobile personal data assistant (PDA).
Using this software the measurements are produced in electronic format right on the spot, while using all possible data-entry equipments and providing automatic control on the values. The system handles the drawing data rapidly, and can handle laser distance meters or barcode readers.
After specifying the structure of rooms each room (or logical zone) can have its own drawing. This drawing is uniquely created first by sketching in the particular room into the PDA, and then measuring the distances. To keep the sketching process as easy as it is possible the system provides numerous tools like the “Ghost layer” function that allow the user to show and snap to already sketched or measured zones.
In many cases it may be enough to have the rooms only partly measured (the “fast measure” function), but in some cases it is required to have them exactly surveyed. Using the automatic measurement function the software warns the user for each missing measurement one by one and for doing all necessary measurements on site.
Although the automatic measurement is very precise, as mentioned before it is not always required and can mean more work than it is necessary. In those cases (and if the user decides to keep most of the angles as they were drawn) it is worth to do the measurements manually, just selecting the distances with the pencil and entering the measured data the same result can be achieved.
Measured distances can be entered on-screen but the fastest way is to use a laser distance meter. The model Leica Disto A6 is such a measurement device, which is supported by default. By using Bluetooth connection it transfers the measured distances with one single click.
Joining rooms to each other can be done easily through walls, wall openings, corners or endpoints. The fully measured rooms are acting as fix drawings (called “islands”) and after joining them to each other they move together (this is the “floating island” functionality).
Besides measuring the walls, wall openings, doors, windows and furnishings/objects are also supported storing their proper positions and properties.
The drawn floor plan can be exported into 2D or 3D DWG format or scaled PDF print outs besides many other formats like .xls, .txt, .xml.
The benefit of using OrthoGraph is to collect graphical and alphanumeric data on-site with ease, where the software helps controlling and display all measurements. There is no more forgotten measurement, or invalid data, everything is shown on the spot, where the data is entered.
For a short video showing the graphical functionality of OrthoGraph visit YouTube on the following address:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-v-6eoptkc&fmt=18
For further details please visit the company’s website at http://www.orthograph.net
Wentzville also known as the ‘Crosslands of the Nation’ is located in the St. Charles county of Missouri. It has a population of about 17, 000. When You buy a luxury home at Wentzville, Missouri you will experience great small-town charm although it is growing at a rapid pace in the fastest growing county of Missouri. Wentzville is surrounded by farmland and rolling hills. The recreational facilities are varied from parks, golf courses, ice arena, biking and hiking trails along the Missouri river.
The annual St. Charles county festival is held here. The available schools are excellent and access to higher education is assured due to the presence of reputed institutions like St. Charles Community College, St. Louis University, Midwest Theological Seminary and the University of Missouri, St. Louis. The road network is well connected and the business people are well served by the St. Louis – Lambert International Airport. Medical facilities are excellent and the proximity to St. Louis offers Medicare at its best.
Family centric neighborhoods like Stone Meadows and The Great Lantern Senior Center for the elderly make up the community for all its charm and good spirits. Peace Avenue makes up the shopping area and the city of St. Louis offers many more options for commercial and retail business. The weather is fine in all the four seasons and they can be experienced in their pristine glory. Progress parks on Meyer Road with 50 meter pool, Water Slide, Lighted Baseball and Football fields and Gymnasium is the best and there are many other parks to relax in .
The properties are least expensive and more diverse. You can find single-family ranch homes, split-level homes and two storey homes in the Autumn Valley Lake and buy a luxury home. Dove Meadows sports homes built on plush green grass with all amenities. Huntsdale presents a picture of the country in a ultra modern setting with greenery all over the place. Bear Creek Golf course is nearby and Wentzville Parkway is for shopping pleasure. The homes are built in two styles with different floor plans to suit your taste.
The prices range from $100,000 to $1,200,000.
(1) The average listing price for a single bedroom home is $134,900, for a two bedroom it is $160,557, for a three bedroom it is $227,306 and for a four bedroom it is $307,609.
(2) The average price per sq. foot for a three bedroom home is $136 in June-Aug 2007 quarter compared to $108 In the March-May 2007 quarter, up by nearly 25.9%
(3) The average price per sq. foot for a four-bedroom home is $78 in June-Aug 2007 quarter as compared to $83 in March-May 2007 quarter, which is a cool 6% less.
(4) The number of three-bedroom houses sold is 2 in June-Aug 2007 compared to 8 in March-May 2007 and for a four-bedroom home the figures are 1 and 4 respectively.
The following are some of the most expensive homes for sale at this point in Wentzville.
(1) Vacant Lot, Wentzville 63385 – $2,545,428
(2) 37 Barnor Rd, Wentzville 63385- $1,199,000 — 5br, 41/2 ba
(3) 31 Barnor Rd, Wentzville 63385- $ 899,000 — 7 br, 51/2ba
(4) 207 Brone Hallow Dr,Wentzville 63385 $ 899,000 — 5 br, 6 ba
(5) Tall Cedar, Wentzville 63385 $ 799,900 — 4 br, 5 ba
Generally properties in the Bear Creek Golf and Winghaven community, reflect the higher side with large estate areas having Golf course frontage and views.
After assessing the market conditions arrive at a budgetary figure you are comfortable at servicing the debts that normally accrue with the purchase of a home.
Pick up a Real estate agent who is reliable, trustworthy and services well to your needs.
Although you wish to buy a luxury home appraise the property so that the real value in the market emerges out completely. Don’t be tempted to move into a glamorous community with which you cannot integrate whole-heartedly even though you can afford to purchase the home. Developers sometimes impose conditions such as not changing the color, landscape, and any renovation that does not represent the neighborhood in its entirety. Negotiations can be made with the developers well at the beginning of the project and at the end of the project. The market generally warms up in February, as the families want to shift to their new homes during the summer vacations before the schools reopen after the holidays. November and December are generally low key and you can hunt for bargain deals.
Home inspection has to be undertaken to find out the true nature of the property in line with the contract. Home protection plans are also to be taken up to guard against unforeseen contingencies.
Closing costs like Attorney fees, Title transfer fees and Home inspection fee etc are to be provided for to close the deal successfully when you buy a luxury home at Wentzville.