During the whole life cycle of a serviced apartment from start to operational. Setting up a serviced apartment is the most important phase wherein 100% involvement by the owner is a must. Want to know why…

My Pain:

What can I expect from the Landlord to include?

What are all the elements required for setup?

How do I execute?

Where do I source the material?

What all Government clearances I require?

My experience:

Address of our Service Apartment in Chennai: Chesterfield, Ramapuram, Opposite DLF SEZ Main gate.

This is a gated community 25 villas with a swimming pool, opposite DLF SEZ Chennai. Ideally located for all the SEZ IT companies in DLF.

TrustedStay was marketing the  Service apartments in Chesterfield Ramapuram. They were facing challenges from its corporate clients in DLF on issues like, Cleanliness and quality of food served from existing Service apartment owners. Business was good but customers were not revisiting. TrustedStay proposed me to setup serviced apartment in Chesterfield in 2016.

I visited Chennai, did a survey of serviced apartment being run in Chesterfield. Met a few corporates to take their feedback. I stayed for a night at Chesterfield Serviced apartment, which gave me many insights. I found the root cause of issue on Cleanliness, floor stains, Faucets not working were due to hard water in that area. Honestly the food quality was not up to the mark. Fortunately, the same service apartment owner was planning to wind up too.

After a quick assessment, I decided to give it a shot. Agreed to take 2 no’s 4- & 3-bedroom villas which was already being run as serviced apartment, but also managed to identify 2 more villas a 3 bedroom & a 2 Bedroom Villa in the same complex.

I knew all villas require a huge investment for a complete face-lift. I was clear on my expectations from all the landlords as under

• All faucets & taps to be replaced in every villa. I remember the inconsistent flow of water from shower & faucets could be very irritating to the guests
• All villas windows to have mosquito nets. I remember the experience when I stayed for a night.
• All Villas has to be completely white washed and all wooden doors & windows to be polished.
• All floors & Bathroom required a deep cleaning & floor polishing
• All vintage AC’s to be replaced with new Split AC’s
• All electrical power plug points to be redone as per my new plan.
• And some of the villas required small modifications to create some space for Linen, housekeeping material storage, Space for staff room and some carpentry work too.

Armed with my clear requirements I negotiated and signed the rental agreement for all 4 villas.

Fortunately, the Landlord were co-operative and instead of they doing the renovation they gave me the authority to complete the work and agreed to reimburse the cost.

Once the contract was signed. I camped in Chennai for 3 months to set the villas in order.

Layout Plan: Made Layout plan for every villa with dimensions, to plan for bed sizes and location of study table, Mirror & Luggage rack. Also took measurements of all doors and windows to plan for Mosquito net & curtains.

Furniture Requirement: Planned sizes and all dimensions of Beds types, Double & twin Beds, Side tables, Study tables, Luggage racks, TV Wall mounts, Dinning tables, Chairs & Sofa. Wall paintings and Murals.

Main Kitchen Plan: As all the villas had an open Kitchen concept I had to get a closed fully operational main kitchen in one of the villas. Made design layout of the same.

Once the above was done, I invited my known carpenter to come over from Bangalore and shared my plan.

Renovation: engaged the local contractor for renovation of the villas, changes in electrical points, and plumbing work of changing all taps & faucets and whitewashing the villa. Here I preferred to have ivory white on walls.

Curtains & Linen: I then planned my trip to Bangalore to buy Bed-sheets, Quilts, Quilt cover, Mattress protector, Pillow cover, Cushions, Cushion covers, Bed throws, Carpets, Floor rugs, Bathroom Mats, Door mats, Towels, Hand towels, Dining table cover runner, Mats.

Tips: Here I had a plan in mind while purchasing. As I had the layout plan with me. I pre-decided the colour theme for each villa. Based on which I planned purchases room by room. Keeping some fundamentals simple, like all linen to be white so that the stains can be seen and removed after bleaching. The only breaks in colour are bed runners, Cushions, Rugs, Carpets & Curtains which I tend to choose pastel colours.

Appliances: All washing machines, AC’s, Microwave, Frost free refrigerator, Cutlery, Crockery, main kitchen items like Chimney, Water filter, purchased locally from Big Bazaar in Chennai. Price was the only factor here as long as it’s a branded company and service is available.

Commercial clearances: Residential electrical connections were converted to commercial by giving application to Tamil Nadu electricity board. This is a critical part, if not done the penalty will be huge.

Accountant: Hired a local Accounting services company for necessary statutory compliance.

Operations: Here I decided to outsource the Housekeeping & kitchen services to a third party. I was clear as I am operating out of Bangalore I did not want the hassle of managing manpower. Read my blog on “3 Things to know about sourcing and retaining manpower for service apartments” for details

Approximate investment per room was: 1.75 Lacs then.

My Conclusion:

I do not believe in outsourcing the complete project in initial stage to a third person. I personally oversee everything and once done, I consistently maintain the standards. Even today if you happen to visit and inspect the rooms, Linen and Bathroom fittings, they will be sparkling new as in 2016. To know more secrets put your comments I will respond personally.