Anyone negotiate a general contractors bid?

[quad]

How 'bout timing? Same thing? You always on time with your jobs?.

Being on the design side of jobs it is personally tough for me to know on the dot when I'll be finished with a project. So I just answer with it will be done as soon as possible. I don't like to be stressed out working on a deadline. I'd rather under promise and over deliver. I have in the past committed to a finish date and just barely made it or missed it. Similarly it can be tough for contractors to know exactly when they'll finish. Some things might be out of their control down the line. But being late by weeks or months is obviously unacceptable.

A commercial project I worked on was delayed due to Covid however the Phase 1 contractor was also not experienced and handed it off to the Phase 2 contractor literally months past their promised due date even after lockdown restrictions were lifted. And the Phase 2 contractor now have to also fix shoddy work done by the Phase 1 contractor.

 

[tistan]

Since I do this every day for a living, a master batch remodel gutted to the walls and moving plumbing starts at $40k. $60k for master and guest is in line for a competent GC. Reputation is everything. If the more expensive guy has a reputation for being on time on budget, you can guarantee the other guys missed things or shortchanged your finishes. I just finished a budget this week that was a master bath, guest bath, and master bed remodel. It came in at $81k. My wife and I bring in 19k for 3 months of work. By the time you pay insurance, make a million trips to stores, meet with the clients after work, pay for advertising and all of the other overhead of a business, There isn't that much left over. If your contractor is not giving you a detailed budget with a detailed schedule, then move on to the next one. I'm attaching this budget so you can get an idea of what it should look like. This is what we give to the client.

 

[Adower]

Since I do this every day for a living, a master batch remodel gutted to the walls and moving plumbing starts at $40k. $60k for master and guest is in line for a competent GC. Reputation is everything. If the more expensive guy has a reputation for being on time on budget, you can guarantee the other guys missed things or shortchanged your finishes. I just finished a budget this week that was a master bath, guest bath, and master bed remodel. It came in at $81k. My wife and I bring in 19k for 3 months of work. By the time you pay insurance, make a million trips to stores, meet with the clients after work, pay for advertising and all of the other overhead of a business, There isn't that much left over. If your contractor is not giving you a detailed budget with a detailed schedule, then move on to the next one. I'm attaching this budget so you can get an idea of what it should look like. This is what we give to the client.

Thanks for the feedback. All contractors have given a similar line item breakdown. The two lesser bids the contractors have Yelp pages with 30+ reviews all at 4.5-5 stars. The highest bid contractor doesn’t have a yelp which is a little odd. However he does have his own webpage.

 

[tistan]

Thanks for the feedback. All contractors have given a similar line item breakdown. The two lesser bids the contractors have Yelp pages with 30+ reviews all at 4.5-5 stars. The highest bid contractor doesn’t have a yelp which is a little odd. However he does have his own webpage.

I don't think I have a yelp page either. Just web page, facebook and whatever comes up on google.

If they are giving that much detail, then you should be able to see if anything is different or missed.

 

[Adower]

I don't think I have a yelp page either. Just web page, facebook and whatever comes up on google.

If they are giving that much detail, then you should be able to see if anything is different or missed.

Yeah it just looks like the big difference in cost comes from plumbing, electrical, drywall, and tile labor costs.

 

[tistan]

Yeah it just looks like the big difference in cost comes from plumbing, electrical, drywall, and tile labor costs.

My tile guy is pretty high on his price, but he does excellent work and is detailed about the layout of everything. Good tiles setters are very few and far between. Same with drywall guys, although my drywall sub is really reasonable. If the job is pretty straightforward, electrical and plumbing prices should be within $500 of the other quotes. Plumbing a bath where fixtures and shower is moving is 2 day rough 1 day trim out. Depending on access difficulties, electrician is usually 2-3 days rough and 1 day on trim. They need to be detailed about depth of finished materials and exact locations.

 

[me32]

All you’re doing is confirming my job security and continued success. You must have been rolled hard a few times by some terrible contractors.

And that’s all I got to say about that.


OP I agree with the post above about the guy possibly not wanting to even win the bid the way he’s priced 20% and the mentioned back log.

You still never answered his questions. That in itself says alot.

 

[BigPoppa]

I'll tell you how it's done in the large cap world.

You get bids and then you compare what each bid submission is bringing with them (i.e. amount of experience, success at similar projects, client recommendations, etc.).

Depending on the company requesting the bids and their business morals policy, some bids that are a given percentage outside the bell curve of the other bids are rejected while some companies will either tell the outlying bidders that they are too high or too low and request another bid from them or ask all bidders to resubmit. (Some companies forbid telling bidders that their bid is x amount too high or too low in order to protect confidentiality).

Some bids will be high because a company has higher overhead than others or they require a higher profit margin on projects. This works in opposite fashion for low bids.

When I bid engineering projects for my clients, everything is based on how large the project is, the timeline (you want it faster? I have to put more people on it and that costs more), the quality of the materials desired,, and the experience of the people my client wants me to use on the project (guy with 25 years experience costs more than guy with 5 years experience).

Don't just look at the bottom line of a bid to determine if it should be rejected. You need to determine if the level of service you're going to receive matches the requirements of the bid request.

FYI, I was called into a client once because one of our principal partners bid too low and the client knew it. Myself and another colleague reviewed the bid and found that it was about 20% too low and adjusted it accordingly. The partner (a very close and dear friend of mine) still cut too much off of it because he thought that was a way to "get our foot in the door", but all it did was cause us to lose the bid. Although not a primary requirement of my job, I regularly review our bid submissions because the sales reps will sometimes misjudge what is necessary to accurately bid the job.