If house-buying included a project manager….
When I bought my house, I had never done this before, I didn’t want it to go wrong, a lot of money was on the line and I wanted to know what getting to the end would look like and entail, so I could prepare. In other words, multiple reasons why I would want this coordinated to reduce risk, monitor timelines, map out an approach, and plan so that small details didn’t get missed.
When I was in the middle of it, it felt never-ending – we could have been two steps from finish and didn’t know because no-one anywhere had a view of the plan from start to finish. There is also a lot of lingo in house-buying, which further heightened the mystery in an excruciating way.
Almost from the off, I found myself wondering – why does this industry not use project managers??
I firmly believe it would feel less stressful and improve outcomes for everyone involved.
Less stressful for the buyers, the solicitors, the estate agents and the various trades and surveyors along the way.
Less time spent for everyone chasing everyone else, multiple times over.
More opportunity to reduce timescales and expedite the process by managing tasks and timelines.
Prevent re-work and missed deadlines.
Better alignment between various parties involved, everyone is on the same page, know what their tasks are and deadlines they need to meet.
Ensure that small details are not overlooked.
Identify common pitfalls and work to avoid them, or at least, develop a contingency plan for if they do occur.
Why does this function not exist in the house-buying industry?!
This is a well-defined path, that many many people have trodden before, so it can be mapped out with some relative certainty over the steps involved. Many of the steps are the same every time. And there is definitely a critical path.
Sure, buyers can pull out, house issues can be found unexpectedly, but these are just, in project speak, issues that need to be managed if they occur. Anyone can uncover a showstopping issue at any point in a project; that’s not a reason not to have a project manager or a plan.
If there had been a project manager, they may have produced something like this:
