Most frustrating part about home improvement? - Research Question
Also, let us not think that contractors who charge a premium are making any more money than contractors who do not. Contractors who charge a premium may work fewer jobs which enables them to spend more time on finer details to ensure that the quality and ensure the jobs run smoother. They can spend more time talking to the client and their staff. They may not make more money but the up shot for them is they do less running around, traveling between jobs – say if they ran two jobs at a time as opposed to three. Less headaches for them, better quality for customer.
andriywww1990
in General Discussion 2 years and 11 months ago
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rogan | 2 years and 11 months ago
What would you say is the most frustrating part of getting major home service/improvement projects done?
Of this list, what would be your top 3:
• Finding contractors
• Making sure contractors don’t cheat me
• Negotiating price
• Choosing between multiple offers
• Managing the process
• Minimizing project price
• Finding the best financing option
• Taking advantage of rebates/tax credits
• Finding green/sustainable options
• Getting permits/approvals
• Determining whether green/sustainable options are worth the investment
Let me know if I missed one that’s a big one for you!
Augustiner | 2 years and 11 months ago
If this poster was from NYC the list would look like this :
Permitting
DOB requirements.
Code compliance
Slow bureaucracy
andriywww1990 | 2 years and 11 months ago
anyone who has to worry that a contractor will cheat them has selected the wrong contractor. there are honest contractors out there who stake their livelihoods on their integrity. the problem is often with the customer; the customer did not spot the red flags or failed to yield to them and some never learn and continue to hire dishonest contractors all their lives and blame the industry for being full of dishonest people; it is the customer making the selection and the customer has to accept that responsibility when they hire a cheat.
to suggest that customers have to make sure the contractor does not cheat them is an insult to all of the honest contractors. honest contractors hate cheats (they have to bid against them and the cheat often has a way of bidding lower and hiding the fact that he did so – maybe with sub par materials or skipping steps in a process, like priming wood before painting). if customers would stop using dishonest contractors, they w ould fail to exist and then we would not have to look at garbage dumped on the side of the road and under bridges.
andriywww1990 | 2 years and 11 months ago
in short to what i say above, the op should have asked “finding honest contractors”. find the honest ones and you will have no problems with the rest of the job. honest contractors will bid fairly, will admit they might not know something or admit they have to consult someone or should hire a specialized trade. dishonest contractors will present themselves as able to do everything (a licensed home improvement contractor telling a customer they are qualified to do the electrical wiring or run a gas line; those are classic cheats; they are cheating the customer out of the safety and security of his or her family and cheating honest electricians and plumbers out of work). if you want to find a dishonest home improvement contractor, ask him if he will run a new 220v line for a dryer or move a gas line across the kitchen for the stove; if he says yes, he will do it without hiring a licensed trade, he is dishonest; show him to the door.
what homeowners do not realize is that for contractors to underbid other contractors they have to do something wrong. the market is too competitive for us to just make up prices and hand out bids or pad them by 25% and if a contractor really needs the work to keep a crew busy he might bid low and make it part of the plan to skip some step or cheat on something or at least rush through things. honest contractors will not do that, they will bid where they should be and risk losing the job before cheating a customer.
honest contractors never want to be the lowest bid. or at least not 10 or even 5% lower than the field of bids. people who select the lowest bids are making money the overriding factor and when money becomes the overriding factor in any relationship, the relationship will be difficult. it does not matter if a customer has the money or not; it will make the job difficult. a good question for the op to use is “am i realistic about the cost of a renovation” or “do i have the money to move forward”.
Lurker | 2 years and 11 months ago
Finding contractors/Making sure contractors don’t cheat me and negotiating price are all the same thing really.
• Managing the process–
• Getting permits/approvals
And overall expense.
If you don’t have significant cash resources, most permitted renovations in NYC involve a blind roll of the dice because you aren’t able to hire the sorts of established and reliable contractors who are able to charge a premium based on their reputation. And all the rest tends to follow: a good contractor will manage the process, do work that passes DOB, keeps to budgets, etc.
andriywww1990 | 2 years and 11 months ago
To add to what lurker has said, basically, a better contractor can charge more to “manage” the job. A better manager will make fewer mistakes with hiring staff, selecting subs, managing money; the entire job and customer experience will be different. I am not sure i would call it a premium though. No one on this board thinks they are getting a premium because they do a good job. They just think they get compensated for what they do and better people with more experience and talent get paid more. A premium would be something above and beyond that puts a contractor in another realm.
andriywww1990 | 2 years and 11 months ago
Contractors charging a premium may be those working say in the upper east side or brooklyn heights or well heeled clients in carrol gardens or park slope. We know when we are dealing with folks in that realm as the conversation starts different and discussions about money take place a little later.
Keep in mind the competitiveness of this industry. Yes, at the top there is less competition but there are also fewer customers at that level. So most successful contractors work just below that level. Customers would be wise to consider that perhaps the majority of the contractors who present themselves well and manage a job well enough to make most people happy are basically making what they should to live in nyc’s outer boros but are not getting rich.
Customers should consider this: the contractors who screw things up, dump trash on the highway, cheat the customers, take short cuts, hire a crew that looks like they belong to a street gang and underbid jobs and become the lowest bid that the customer selects: let’s not think they are getting rich. They are strug gling (even though they are “cheating”). The problem is they have not figured out how to present themselves and produce the kind of work that attracts customers who know how to select a contractor. So they underbid to get the job and some inexperienced customer hires them. Their intention may not be to cheat the customer but they have not figured out how to eek a living out of what is the lowest bid so they have to cheat the customer.
Op, i wrote something on here about how to select a safe bid. It is very long but comes from a place of experience. The people who end up with fiascos usually use the bidding system to select the lowest bid, like 20% lower than the field of bids. Customers do not realize that there is no way a contractor can shave 20% off a job without taking shortcuts. In essence the contractor becomes a “cheat” whether he wants to or not.
Op, i would add to your list “how to use a bidding system to select a contractor”. Most inexperienced homeowners have no idea how to select bids.