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January 3, 2009
What Would You Want In a Construction Company?
Hey folks, We are a group of professionals who are currently in the process of opening up a new construction firm in Brooklyn, New York. Our company is composed of professionals who will implement the modern skills and existing skills to develop a firm that will provide the best construction services. Our services ranges from Designing, to repairing and to building. Our goal by 2013 we will have more than 3 Engineers and Architects working under our firm. Our main focus will be residential properties and as we develop we will take on commercial properties as well. Before we can establish our firm we want to know what are some of the needs that you(home owners)seek? We would like to hear you opinions. Please Let us know. As a side note I cannot speak of our firms name, due to many legal reasons, so please let us know how to provide home owners the best services. We are also working on to bring financial plans that will help home owners to renovate or to build projects where they dont have the fund available. So I would like you guys to tell me what would you guys like in a construction firm?
Comments
Honesty and integrity will be an excellent start. Please see the above thread on the single mother who was swindled to the point of almost losing her home. Yep by far the biggest complaint about contractors is one of diminished honesty and integrity. Now once you have that established the rest will flow relatively easily.
PS: we don't mean this in a rude or condescending way @ all its just a basic trait that is severely lacking in the construction business.
Posted by: pierre de taille at January 3, 2009 10:15 PM
I think a large problem with the contractor/client relationship is that there is so much pressure to provide a cheap bid and there are so many variables.
I think contractors, like all people, are generally honest. But because of the intense competition, often from lowballers who have no idea what they are doing, means contractors are forced to provide bids with dangerously slim profit margins.
Add that with the huge number of things that can go wrong once you open up a wall and see whats behind it and you have a large percentage of contractors who end up losing money on a job.
They are then faced with continuing to loose money or bail on the job. Or simply cut corners.
The end result is the client gets screwed and the contractor has no way of making it better.
Solution? If, and this is a big if, there is trust between the client and contractor the issues can be remedied. Anything that builds trust between the two parties so they feel they are both on the same side tackling an issue together is needed.
These are hard things to define.
From the contractor's point of view it means always keeping the best interest of the client in mind and remaining honest.
For a contractor who tries to unfairly charge a client then the honest issue is easy to fix. On the flip side, well intentioned contractors sometimes lie and say a job will cost less than it actually does. The reasons for this are varied, from simply being embarrassed of the real price to a misguided belief they can somehow do the job under required budget. This kind of dishonesty also needs to be eliminated, however hard it is to deliver the blunt truth (and possibly loose the bid).
From the client's point of view I think it requires an active involvement in the process. They might not understand the mechanics of the job but if they see more of the steps then they might be able to gauge better where the money is going.
Posted by: gennaro at January 4, 2009 12:08 AM
For a start, you can buy ads in the local free paper that is tossed in front of every house plasti-wrapped w/drug store and supermarket circulars. I get the Marketeer which is great for specials at local stores, restaurants, here's my card, etc. I love to look at that. Make your ad enticing w/a free consultation for example.
Posted by: pattunia at January 4, 2009 3:31 AM
Stackx-
In a sense, I echo Gennaro's comments. I'm a fanatic about residential real estate, construction, design. From a construction company, I'd want directness, honest consultation, competency, and execution with attention to detail and a commitment to quality. These things - I feel - are easy to mention. But I think that dealing according to these attributes requires commitment. And they're attributes of the people I've most liked dealing with in the past.
I'd like to have the confidence that the construction company is effective at selecting and managing good subs.
I also suspect that there's an effective way to be candid about cost and margin, remain competitive, and promote client loyalty.
Managing with smart attention to the schedule. Things happen that adversely impact, I know. But again, I'd like to have the confidence that the GC / CM / PM are proactively smart about managing to schedule.
I'd want to know that (one) could execute finish details effectively and carefully. (I favor boutique residential - in which attention to layout and finish detail tends to be critical.)
I think that Owner's Rep services would generally be valued also.
Funding and co-development could be interesting - in combination with the foregoing attributes of course. (Smile.)
Posted by: keithan at January 4, 2009 12:43 PM
As a client, here is something I would want that I didn't know enough to insist on at the time. I want to know that if I agree to a work and payment schedule with reasonable progress payments, the contractor has enough in reserve to obtain the necessary materials (mill product) to do the job according to schedule, and to be able to live within a reasonable payment schedule.
Posted by: slopefarm at January 5, 2009 11:57 AM
God bless you in this economy. You are brave.
Posted by: superstooper at January 5, 2009 9:47 PM
my advice is to pay your subcontractors well, and stand up for them on change orders...otherwise you will get third rate service with no guarantee backing up your work..in other words put service before profit.. also you might try to do what i have recently decided to do and put 10% of your time in putting your services to charity ..it is the best way of using your skills to improve your community
Posted by: eman1234 at January 5, 2009 10:06 PM
As a consumer, I want :
real tradesmen to do the work not day workers
honesty in dealing with costs and consequences of choices
cleanliness
work to be done on time
The "do unto others rule" applies in all cases.
Posted by: CH11231 at January 6, 2009 8:58 PM
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