Try to being a smart owner then end up
bloody tearful experience owner builder
This is the most common situation for experience to be an owner builder or dream home owner.
“Go find a professional contractor even you fill your going to pay little more, don’t do like me went through with bloody and tearful journey, it is not worth it, and in the end I really not saving anything.”
This is the word I heard form one of my client 5 years ago, he’s colleague said this before my client hire me for his dream home in Palo Alto California
It is seams like very one know, get 3 or more contractor bid and choose the middle one. Yes it is not wrong, but in reality it is all depends.
Most of in bay area are high educated or high income entrepreneur. People have most strong demanding habit. They always think construction guy not as smart as themselves. But they forgot one thing. Every business has their own business nature, knowledge, and construction is the most complicated and full of uncertainty business nature. And also need faith in-between job and contractor, owner and contractor…
Like I always said, this business is not a one plus one equal two business. Actually it is never end up like two. Most my experience is bigger than two. Most people not hire me which hired some cheaper or expensive bigger crew are all end up less then two.
It is not because whose smart whose not, it is all because this business has strong business nature unlike other business. Since all architect never can figure out all the detail on the design, and also since owner never can figure out what they really want until everything finish. It is add a lot uncertainty on the project.
On the other hand, contractor have all different background. Some from being either carpenter or other trade prentice, some from architect background, some from business management background some from realtor background. They don’t have same knowledge. Which means they all have different way to do the estimate.
The main different is the personal characteristic. Most honest contractor can give farley realistic estimate than any others. But owner hardly to know, who is the one being honest. We know, the similar things or human most of the time go together naturally. Referral is very important. If your friend hired this contractor before. And their quality and work attitude feel well. That is most important information. You should go for this contractor not only base on his price. Since it is referral the same contractor won’t bid big different price if the project not quite big different.
I mentioned before for a 3000 sqft new house, the price could be 150k to 200k different.
Most of cheap contractor have those problem
- they never really read plan carefully before give you quote. They just check 1st 2nd page of plan lock at how many square feet of house, the times $ /sf. Average. The reason for this is they are not really can ready plan well.
- they want to get more job as much as possible because they can not management their cash flow well, the keep dig bigger hole and use dirt to patch previous smaller hole.
- they have all the cut corner subcontractors follow with him or his crew try to do everything themselves without use better professional sub trade. (sometime ok, sometime not. But at least he save a big chunk of sub profit margin)
- they have very good technique for playing with change order after get in the job, since 9 out of 10 owner like cheap bid and then they add a lot extra charges at the back.
Next article I will tell you some real story for hired cheap contractor end up with. But for now I just want to tell you. Do not go to the contractor which is very cheap and a lot cheaper than any other bid ever 90% chance you will suffered and end up cost even more.
