On Jun 22, 8:50 pm, "Madx" wrote:
"RicodJour" wrote in message

I started charging for estimates a long
time ago. Same deal. You sign up, you get a refund. Cuts down on
the tire kickers. It also lets people know that you value your time,
and you expect them to do the same.


So then a person with a remodel job would have to pay $300-500 up front to
get 3 - 5 bids and then only $100 would be credited back. Seems like quite
a racket. Why even be the low bid. You could make a living just going out
on estimates - just give an outrageous bid. I will never pay for a quote.
It's highway robbery.

Wouldn't it be more like burglary since we're talking about
houses?

You've heard the old saying, there is no such thing as a free lunch,
right? Well, it's true. You may not think you're being charged for
that "free" estimate, but you are. The contractor just buries it in
his price somewhere. I prefer to be more upfront about it.

It requires effort to prepare an estimate. There's the site visit,
discussing the customers wants and needs, working up the estimate
itself, then sitting down with the customer to review the estimate and
point out where there are areas where money could be saved, or areas
where more money will be required to do it right. In short -
educating the customer.

Where do you think that time comes from? I have no more hours in my
week than you do. I can't just ignore hours anymore than your boss
will ignore hours if you decide to skip work. From your comment, it's
obvious that you're not the boss or I wouldn't need to explain this
stuff to you. An estimate and presentation might take three hours or
more. What do you feel would be a reasonable amount of money to
charge for that time?

Since you brought up the 3-5 bids, where does that come from? Do you
think that somehow gives you a better project or saves you money? It
doesn't work that way. Most people that get more than a couple or
three bids are simply price shopping. They think that all contractors
are interchangeable and will pick the lowest bid. My work is far
above the norm and so are my prices. You and I would never get past
the initial phone call. I screen potential customers at least as
carefully as the owner screens me. If someone is price shopping,
there are other contractors who are eager to race each other to the
bottom of the barrel. I'm not. I've never been the low bid, and if I
was informed I was, besides being shocked, I'd assume I'd missed
something and go racing to double-check my estimate.

When you hear about a remodeling project where there were horrendous
cost overruns, it's usually due to an owner price shopping, taking the
lowest bid and hoping for the best, or because an owner doesn't
understand the correlation between what they'd like done and what has
to be done. Both scenarios are recipes for disaster.

R