FAMILY BANK’S GROWNG HOME CONCEPT SIMILARITIES WITH A4ARCHITECT.COM’S DIAMOND HOUSE CONCEPT

FAMILY BANK’S GROWNG HOME CONCEPT SIMILARITIES WITH A4ARCHITECT.COM’S DIAMOND HOUSE CONCEPT.
See Diamond House concept here
http://feeds2.feedburner.com/real-estate-portal

FAMILY BANK INTRODUCES THE GROWING HOME MORTGAGE

On October 4, 2011,a mortgage product was released- ’GROWING HOME’.

http://www.familybank.co.ke/Info/Family%20Bank%20Introduces%20the%20Growing%20Home%20Mortgage

Family Bank Introduces the Growing Home Mortgage
NAIROBI, KENYA / October 04, 2011 – Family Bank, today introduced its latest, innovative product for budding home owners; Growing Home Mortgage.

Growing Home is Family Bank’s revolutionary approach to property ownership that makes owning a home simple and straight forward. Everyone wishes to own a home, but the expenses involved in building one even getting a mortgage are so huge and almost
unbearable to many people. Family Bank noticed that the mainstream customer buys land, gets money and builds their house in phases, hence the invention of Growing Home Mortgage.

Whether you need to pay step by step, build brick by brick, or expand floor after floor, Growing Home Mortgage has the most unique affordable solutions. Family Bank will quickly get you living comfortably in your home or growing your property portfolio.

“A growing number of the middle class is now opting for home ownership, with many individuals and groups now appreciating that investing in a home not only provides a solid security, but is a relatively stable investment,” said Mr. Peter Munyiri, Family Bank
Managing Director. He added that “Family Bank continues to monitor our customers’ wants and needs, so as to create products and services which are better suited to them.”

You can now move into your new home from Kshs. 1 Million in four easy steps:
1. If you own a plot, it will anchor the affordable financing for construction of your house, which you build in phases, as and when you can afford to do so.
2. Once you’ve selected one of the available house plans, you can start building based on your timelines and your pocket.
3. Once the first phase of your home is complete, move in!
4. 4. Your new home will grow with you as your finances and circumstances allow

http://www.familybank.co.ke/Info/Family%20Bank%20Introduces%20the%20Growing%20Home%20Mortgage

THE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN FAMILY BANK’S GROWING HOME CONCEPT AND A4ARCHITECT.COM’S DIAMOND HOUSE PHASED CONSTRUCTION CONCEPT ARE AS FOLLOWS:

Use of Phased Construction concept.
a4architect’s Diamond house suggests that Phased Construction can increase the number of home loan applicants:
‘Step 2.

Use of Phased construction.
House owners can easily start with the 1 bed roomed phase, move to 2 and end up with the 3 bed roomed phase. A majority of potential house owners do not construct their houses simply because constructing 2 and 3 bedroom houses all at once is a huge task.’

From DIAMOND HOUSE FLAT ROOF

This use of Phased Construction to increase business has been noted by you in the GROWING HOME’ concept.

http://www.familybank.co.ke/fckeditor/userfiles/phase_development.jpg

A4architect’s Diamond House suggests that the house be phased in to 3 phases-Phase 1-45m2, phase2-67m2 and phase 3-92m2. This will in effect increae the number of potential customers by offering a wider range of choice which caters for a wider range of budget and space requirement.
You have utilized a similar method, the difference being that your GROWING HOME concept utilizes only 2 choices as opposed to the DIAMOND HOUSE concept that has 3 choices.

A4architect.com Diamond House concept suggests that the best method to dissipate the information to your customers is through use of brochures with the information regarding phased construction, labour-based procurement and construction technology summarized in steps:
’ We suggest that you allow us to place brochures at the bank counters with your logo as shown in the attached brochure sample.
This will enable us dissipate information to your customers for a win-win situation between your Bank, your customers and us.
‘.
This is the same method you are using to dissipate the information to your customers.

Method of implementation.
A4architect.com Diamond House concept suggests that the Diamond House concept be implemented as follows:
‘IMPLEMENTATION
This design is implemented through the below process:

1.choose a phase that suits you,
2.contact www.a4architect.com
obtain your Diamond House documentation and
3.
visit your nearest Bank branch for construction
financing to achieve your dream home anywhere
in Kenya.’

In your launch of the GROWING HOME concept, you outlined the implementation as below:
‘You can now move into your new home from Kshs. 1 Million in four easy steps:
1. If you own a plot, it will anchor the affordable financing for construction of your house, which you build in phases, as and when you can afford to do so.
2. Once you’ve selected one of the available house plans, you can start building based on your timelines and your pocket.
3. Once the first phase of your home is complete, move in!
4. Your new home will grow with you as your finances and circumstances allow
These steps are similar to the www.a4architect.com’s Diamond House concept suggestions.

Use of Creative construction technology to reduce costs.
The A4architect.com Diamond House concept suggests use of creative construction technology which i have researched for the last 10 years as a solution to making housing cheaper hence increasing the number of customers applying for home loans.
The a4architect.com Diamond House concept includes a youtube video on how the costs can be reduced. One of the methods outlined in detail is the use of louvre windows which reduces window costs by 33.5%.
http://www.a4architect.com/2011/09/19/diamond-house-plan-8900-per-month/

In your GROWING HOME concept, you have also specified the same type of window as suggested earlier.

http://www.familybank.co.ke/fckeditor/userfiles/phase_home_.jpg

Use of wooden patio at door entrance.
The a4architect.com Diamond House concept specifies use of wooden patio at the front entrance.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-zjuyMXpzoiQ/TlYq9BJmUJI/AAAAAAAAFQk/Div8Q5n78V4/s320/4..jpg
This wooden patio increases the building plinth area while keeping costs down hence increasing the number of Home Loan applicants.

From DIAMOND HOUSE FLAT ROOF

In your GROWING HOME concept, you have also used a similar wooden external door patio.

In your launch of the GROWING HOME concept, you wrote;
‘Family Bank noticed that the mainstream customer buys land, gets money and builds their house in phases, hence the invention of Growing Home Mortgage.’
The a4architect.com Diamond House also states that ‘Most residential houses constructed in Kenya employ this method of procurement.
A labour-based contract is where the house owner supplies a local fundi or contractor with all the materials needed and pays the fundi/contractor for their labour.
‘.
HOW WE CAN WORK TOGETHER.

From the above similarities , its clear that we are all thinking along the same lines.
Family Bank has its core business based on Banking and Finance.
PRISM DESIGNS AFRICA www.a4architect.com has is core business based on architecture, construction and real estate.
Therefore, chances are that www.a4architect.com will be in a better position to research and develop products related to construction and real estate . For example, the reason why the a4architect.com Diamond House is estimated at KES 676,000 while the Family Bank’s GROWING HOME is estimated at KES 1m is because the Diamond House has put in more effort in Research and Development hence more savings and eventually more business.

GLOBAL CHANGE TOWARDS OUTSOURCING

The world over, businesses are moving towards Joint Ventures/collaborations/outsourcing whereby they outsource services that are not part of their core business. For example,world-class companies such as Apple, Nokia, Google keep innovation flowing by encouraging other companies to work out accessory products that can ‘plug-in’ to their core functions and the resultant is a win-win situation. Such products are broadly termed as ‘Add-Ons’.
My vision is for the a4arhitect.com Diamond House concept to be a part of the ‘Add-on’ within your GROWING HOME concept as opposed to the view that it is a competitor which needs to be edged out competitively from the market.
Am well aware of the disadvantages of monopoly and therefore would like the a4architect.com Diamond House to compete fairly and favorably with other later entrants into the world of residential housing architecture. This competition will be to the benefit of Family Bank customers, Family Bank and a4architect.com.
WAY FORWARD
I suggest that a series of meetings between Family Bank and www.a4architect.com’s representatives be established to streamline the integration of the Diamond House concept into your GROWING HOME concept.
This way, Family Bank will be able to concentrate on their core Banking function and a4architect.com will be able to carry out more Research and Development into methods of reducing the cost of mortgages in a win-win situation.
This way, Family Bank will use less resources to come up with innovative mortgage solutions since already www.a4architect.com’s Diamond House plan will have carried out most fo the Research and Development needed in reducing const of construction as opposed to Family Bank re-inventing the wheel so to speak.

REMUNERATIONS

In such a collaboration whereby the a4architect.com’s Diamond House design is implemented into your GROWING HOME range of house plans to be chosen, the Diamond House will compete with the available designs and Family Bank customers will themselves decide which design serves them the best in terms of pricing and aesthetics.
www.a4architect.com will get paid once a customer chooses and utilizes its designs and the remuneration will be as specified in Chapter 525 of the Laws of Kenya. See details of Chapter 525 here
http://www.a4architect.com/architectural-consulting-service/
The cost of the consultancy service is already included in the estimate of constructing the Diamond House plan.
This way, Family Bank will not have the burden of paying www.a4architect.com hence a win-win situation.
Of course, your alternative ideas on how we can collaborate on this issue are always welcome.

Architect Francis Gichuhi Kamau
www.a4architect.com
info@a4architect.com
+254721410684