How To Compare Your Construction Bids
You've contacted three contractors in each one of them
have given you three construction estimates and each one of them are
different, what do you do now. It's time to compare your construction
bids and select your contractor.
The easiest way to do this would be to throw away the expensive
estimates and keep the cheap one, but that usually isn't the most
effective way for hiring the best contractor for the job. You really
need to focus on comparing apples to apples and by this I mean comparing
each construction bid to each other, looking for any irregularities.
One of the first things that you're going to look for when comparing
these estimates is to make sure that each one of them has provided you
with enough information to make a good decision. If you have two job
proposals with all the information that you're looking for, but the
third one is lacking a few items, contact the contractor and ask them
for a new proposal with the correct information on it.
Most contractors will be happy to provide you with anything that you ask
for. If you do run into the rare contractor who isn't going to provide
you with any more information that should send you a clear signal that
this isn't someone you should be doing business with.
Once you have the three estimates in front of you with all of the
information that you're looking for, start looking for the differences
in labor and material prices to find out why these construction
estimates are priced different.
You don't need to be a rocket scientist or have a Ph.D. in mathematics
to compare one estimate with another. Any questions that you have about
the contracts could easily be answered with one phone call to the
contractor. Ask as many questions as you need to make a good decision
about which contractor you're going to use.