Home Remodeling Job Estimating
Since I was a young man, I always wanted to work for
myself and when I had the opportunity to become a general contractor, I
jumped at the chance. What I'm about to share with you is one of the
things that's involved in the construction business and most homeowners
take for granted.
Home remodeling job estimating can take up a lot of the contractor’s
time and when they're free, they're not getting paid for these
estimates. Whenever someone hears the word free, their ears and eyes
seem to start vibrating and quivering in an unbelievable high speed that
no one even notices that they're moving.
This might not be the case, but the word free seems to get more people's
attention than the word buy. I usually gets eight out of 10 jobs that I
estimate and sometimes it's as high as nine out of 10 jobs and don't
really feel like it's a waste of my time for the couple of jobs that I
didn't get, but make no mistake, I recently spent four hours in a
woman's home and another four hours going through her e-mails about the
project, only to find out later that I didn't get the job.
If you're a contractor reading this article, there's a good chance that
you can relate to everything that I'm talking about and sometimes your
frustration can be overwhelming as homeowners continue to shop for the
lowest priced contractor, never looking at the value that a good
contractor can provide for their home remodeling project.
The next time that you call a contractor out to your home for a free
estimate, maybe you should set some milk and cookies out for him like
you do for Santa Claus. This would at least take some of the burden away
if they don't get the job.
Just because the word free estimates suggest that a contractor doesn't
mind coming out to your home and would love to spend hours going over
your project, this isn't usually the case. Try to have as much of the
information about your project as possible before the contractor
arrives. It wouldn't be a bad idea to have a list of questions to ask
your contractor either.
If you can make it easy for your contractor, there's a good chance that
they will meet it easy for you and this could be in the form of discount
pricing. If a contractor views you as a good perspective client, they
could easily lower their prices in hopes of getting the job.