5. BUY AN EXISTING CHILDCARE CENTRE OR BUILD A NEW ONE?
Some people choose to become childcare centre developers by sourcing an appropriate piece of land and building the centre with the aid of an architect, engineer, town planner etc. This is a much longer and riskier procedure and requires a certain amount of property development experience.
Your initial step will be to acquire a piece of land which somebody has already obtained development approval (DA) also known as Planning Permit from a local authority to construct a childcare centre. The other alternative is you buy or place under contract a suitable piece of land and go through the process to obtain a DA/Planning Permit.
If you choose the option of building a childcare centre, you should undertake a feasibility of the local occupancy, fees and income and expenses after the childcare centre is built. Assuming you are borrowing for the venture, your bank will want this early in the process and if you do not have this the bank will have little respect for your abilities.
Once you select an architect, normally they will be able to recommend other consultants and give you an estimate of building and consultants costs for the job.
The architect can guide you through the approval process. As part of the approval application you will be required to employ other consultants such as town planner, noise engineer, traffic engineer and others.
As an indicative guide at the time of writing this, March 2018, the building cost for a single level on ground childcare centre is approximately $25,000 per licensed place. That amount would cover fixed equipment, fixed playground equipment and car park. A multilevel building or one with a basement car park cost suitably more.
You need to weigh up whether it is within your experience, time availability and financial capability to build your own childcare centre. Buying an existing childcare business means you will generally have a positive cash flow from the day you take over the business.
If you decide to build a childcare centre for investment to rent out to a tenant we strongly recommend you obtain a tenant before committing to construction as a risk mitigation strategy.
