Contractor estimate etiquette question
Hello- I’m wondering if people have a sense of the etiquette/common decency before you sign a contract with a contractor. We’re planning a contained reno project and I reached out to a few smallish companies that were recommended and one company that was personally recommended by a friend. One of the contractors that wasn’t personally recommended got back to me quickly, and came over twice, has given me plans and quotes, and worked with us over email over the last 10 days or so. They’ve been very nice and responsive, but now the personally recommended person has gotten back to me (he was away), and given me a slightly lower quote, and made one good recommendation about materials….I’d be fine going with either, but i think the personal reco goes a long way, and the lower price as well. But I (and especially my husband) feel bad saying no to the first company. Is this just how things go, or is this bad etiquette? Obviously we haven’t signed any contracts or even c onfirmed that we are going to work with them…but I think it’s been implied in the last few exchanges. Thanks for any thoughts!
WRPListings
in General Discussion 2 years and 5 months ago
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justinromeu26 | 2 years and 5 months ago
Solicito And Son
Solicitoandson.com
I was on a job on green st in bushwick and had to deal with the guys on a daily basis for close to a week. The crew was top notch from the foreman down.
A note on what i am saying here about how to protect yourself during the bidding process. I have told people this before on here and i never get likes for it. For the most part this is why i think that is: what i am saying makes the homeowner, as the major stakeholder, the responsible party in the bidding process. Most people do not want to accept that responsibility and do not want to know what i am telling them. They would rather chance the lower bid and when it all goes wrong, and they are fighting with their spouse over a bothed renovation, they would rather blame the contractor.
WRPListings | 2 years and 5 months ago
Sure, send the recommendation along!
justinromeu26 | 2 years and 5 months ago
You are correct. Someone who visits twice wants the job.
The lower priced person might be less experienced, hence less on line presence. those people underbid and have issues finishing.
You definitely need the third bid. Ask bid 1 to resubmit with same materials. If the third comes in closer to the top, you have a choice to make. If it comes in between the two you shoild be ok. Do not touch the lowest. You want the middle bid to be closer to the top than not.
I have the perspective of 4 people: an employee working for contractors, a supervisory person for a property management firm (responsible for sourcing bids), a contractor, and a homeowner.
I am not sure what the scope of the work is but i was on a job just over a year ago and the customer had fences, turf, planters, benches, and pavers done and i watched these guys work, had to interact with them daily and i thought they were great and i think my customer was pleased. I can get their name if you need.
WRPListings | 2 years and 5 months ago
Thank you both! this is interesting to get different perspectives. I agree with both of you, actually. Homeinspector, I agree that the higher priced contractor wants the job. I know enough to see that if someone puts in that effort in this business, they want it. But I also agree that with two bids you can’t really decipher if one is too low or if the other is too high. I think the better material (cedar vs spruce for a fence in this situation), has emerged as being very important to me, so at the very least the lower bid person has steered me in a better direction there. I’ll also add that the higher bid company gets some great reviews online, but also a few really bad ones. The other company has a little less of an online presence, but only gets good reviews.
justinromeu26 | 2 years and 5 months ago
This is possible. I was going to write that this system works “if they want the job.”. But then i have to explain that statement. You just did. I had a boss that used to play that game with people but i suspect in here where a lot of things are more or less equal (i won’t do doors in manhattan because of parking but i tell people that instead of upcharging), less of that goes on. Also, someone playing that game would probably aim for 25% higher to make it worth their while if they got the job.
Do not go with your gut. As a professional who was trained by professionals, i can tell you the only way to go is to get that third bid. In this case, as a professional, if we did not get that quote and something went wrong, we would be in trouble (they would think we are incompetent). It is the industry standard on bigger jobs if we were less familiar with the type of project or when the bids are spread. Homeowners know much less about the pros going into any job. They do not know the questions to ask.
Do not make assumptions with contractors. Too many cont ractors today lack professional responsibilty and put themselves first over the client all the time. Even when they are wrong. It was not always that way.
Also i would make a decision on the materials now – and spec them to them to put them all on the same page. I would invite the first person to resubmit with the better matrrials. Then you will have 3 good quotes.
shahnandersen
in General Discussion 2 years and 5 months ago
@HomeInspector There are only two bids on this job. It is perfectly possible that one bid is not 15% lower, but that the other bid is 15% higher. Perhaps, the second bidder is not really excited about the job and will only take it at a premium. Either go with your gut, or one needs to get a third bid to get a better feel for the market price.
justinromeu26 | 2 years and 5 months ago
Op. I just saw your reply which was posted as i was writing. A personal recommendation means absolutely nothing if a contractor makes a mistake writing a quote and does not have the money to complete a job.
I used to get called to complete jobs that other contractors abandoned. People would tell me that the contractor had been recommended or was so and so’s cousin and the could not understand how it all went wrong. After listening to enough of these stories i learned one thing: they had all chosen the lowest bid.
justinromeu26 | 2 years and 5 months ago
also, a note on whoa’s last few lines. sadly, whoa is somewhat correct. the industry has a lot of people out there who are not dedicated to doing the job right. it is move as fast as possible taking every short cut. they do not care any further than their paycheck. in truth it is not your job to babysit them.
in the olden days when i was growing up only 45 or 50 years ago, when you called contractors, they came and they TOLD the customer how it has to be done. THEY set the standard and their standard was better than the customer’s standard.
if you interview contractors from a better pool of candidates (another class of contractors and i have no idea at what class you started with but i will say this, i always try to use the best materials anyway because the best materials are easier to work with) you will find people who hire people who are trained and who care about what they do (they take pride in their work and want to be the best at what they do) and they should be telling you how it is done. you tell them what you want and they tell you how it gets done. they hold your hand, not the other way around.
you should not have to babysit.
justinromeu26 | 2 years and 5 months ago
bad etiquette would be to not write back to that person and tell them you picked another company. you are not married to anyone until the deposit check clears.
in my other business i am a contractor and i have worked in buildings where i have had to source contractors or was part of a team sourcing contractors for what would be “small” projects in commercial (upwards of 500k).
first, something being 15% lower than someone else makes that bid “suspect”. it is too low. even though the lower priced guy comes with a recommendation, he could have made a mistake writing the bid. sadly, homeowners want to believe that contractors will only make the mistake of writing a bid too high when because of the competitive nature of the market and bid system, i say contractors are more likely to mistakenly make a bid too low by leaving something out or underestimated something (keep in mind, we just went through a lot of inflation and i was surprised myself how much certain products went up, especially the high end adhesives i use). When that happens they have to turn to the customer part way through the job and ask for more money or sometimes they cannot finish the job or they have to take a second or third job to complete the first (it sucks for the homeowner but it also sucks for the contractor). this has been mentioned on here i think three times in the past year: in one case someone was about to give up their project (and lose the home) because they had selected a bit that was “not much lower” (the person’s wording; the bid was 20% lower) and the contractor seemed to be having a lot of issues and was asking for more money. this was a full gut i think with underpinning and the homeowner was out of resources and was working with a bank loan. People need to understand that for people doing the work, 20% might be a lot of money. another time someone made a similar mistake and the contractor asked for more money not long after the job started. I guessed it correctly and asked “was this the lowest bid?”. it appeared to be an error (he left a line out) but my point is, as a project manager, it is your job to be sure this does not happen. in both cases, as much as the clients might want to to point at the contractors and say it was their fault, it is really the fault of the homeowner (project manager, the person making the overall financial decisions) for choosing the lowest bids. the bidding process is not used to select the “lowest” bid; it is used to select the “safest” bid.
this is what a pro would do. get a third bid. when you get that bid you might do this: ask the person to write it two ways, using the materials contractor A was suggesting and the materials contractor B was suggesting. see what the numbers come in at for each and compare them to the other two bidders. if the third contractor comes in 10% higher for the better materials than the other person with the better materials, do not take that lowest priced person. 10% is too much money and the lower priced guy could run into a problem. he has not left enough contingency in case something goes wrong (it could be something that goes wrong on the job, in the business or in his personal life). too much a gamble.
when working in this for and with professionals, we never picked the lowest bids. at least not one 10% lower than the pack and usually even if they were close we picked the middle bid. the reason was simple: we had to protect our jobs. you have to protect your asset and sanity.
WRPListings | 2 years and 5 months ago
Thanks for this thorough reply! This is kind of what I thought, but my husband feels differently. By the way, I know I didn’t mention this, but this is for an outdoor job, so no drywall, but i think the same principles you mentioned still apply. The more knowledgeable, thorough and thoughtful person should be the choice. When considering that, my husband and I both felt that the contractor that was personally recommended was that. Also, in my opinion, having a personal recommendation does matter since there is some personal accountability with the job…but that doesn’t always hold true, so who knows. I haven’t had to choose a contractor in 6 years and I’m remembering how nerve-racking it is.
markwalker | 2 years and 5 months ago
You sound like a very nice person, but …. Etiquette, shmeddicate. We are talking business and money and time.
The usual behavior from contractors toward potential customers is quite unmannerly. If a contractor does not want your job, for whatever reason, you never hear from him again. They do not return calls and when you do speak to them, its like “Oh, I thought I did that one already” or some other b.s.
If you are the homeowner, it is common to sit on a couple of bids for the sake of your sanity. If your first choice falls through, or if you have to fire someone, you still have not said “no” to number two. So the common practice is just to leave the proposal on the table until you actually start the job. At that point you might send a polite message that you have decided not to go ahead with this proposal (no need to state a reason).
There are reasons for this, if you were a contractor you dont like to turn down work outright. You might not like the job, or feel it is a pain in the neck. You might calculate your costs per SF and feel you are not going to make enough money. Then you need something for your crew to do for a couple of months before starting another job. so you call the homeowner and say hey my calendar is filling up for the fall and are you going to sign. If you are a home owner, you might find that your chosen contractor suddenly gets a new, better job (and then you hear his mother died or something). or is running way behind schedule and cannot start your job on time. You do not want to close the door especially if you like the other contractor..
But when making your first choice the most important thing is the quality of the contractor’s work. You want someone who uses a plumb bob, a level and a square when putting up walls, not a laser. You do not want any OSB board in your house, anywhere. You want 5/8 in. drywall not 1/2 in (except on the ceiling) and cross bracing in all the walls. You want fully licensed plumbers and electricians. You want someone who is willing to take on and correctly address those “surprises” that come up during construction. You do not want to hire someone who tells you “no one will see it when we’re done” about anything.
How can you tell? you can ask but expect a lie. So you must be prepared to check on everything they are doing while they work. You have to do your homework and read your books about renovation and watch everything.
WRPListings | 2 years and 5 months ago
It’s about 15% lower, but it’s hard to tell because the guy that was recommended to us thought we should use the slightly higher quality material and his quote was around the same price as the other person’s using the lower quality material….but I tend to agree with the better quality suggestion
justinromeu26 | 2 years and 5 months ago
How much lower is the price?