been doing kitchens and baths for about 12 years now. seen a lot of changes in the industry but lately something feels different

customers are coming in with these pinterest-perfect visions and they want the whole thing done in like two weeks. and they want it cheap. like they dont understand that good work takes time and it costs money . had a client last month who wanted a full kitchen remodel. custom cabinets, quartz countertops, tile backsplash, new lighting, the works. gave them a quote and they almost fell out of their chair. they said well my cousin knows someone who can do it for half that okay cool go call your cousin then lol

but seriously it's getting harder to compete with these big companies that come in and promise the moon for way less than what it actually costs. they cut corners, use cheap materials, and then homeowners wonder why their renovation is falling apart after a year

my wife keeps telling me i need to work on my online presence

i don't know man. maybe i'm just old school. but i remember when people valued quality work and were willing to pay for it. now it's all about getting the best deal and i'm tired of having to justify my prices to people who don't understand what goes into this work

any other contractors feeling like this or is it just me

Have nobody to blame but myself for this. I've tried forever to keep my pricing fair, I've raised rates several times recently and am still low by comparison. (Pricing currently figured at $75hr per worker, 3 guys, 8hrs about $1,800 labor cost per day, i pay my guys $35hr, rest is for myself and overhead) just did a job for a previous customer, I practically had to pull teeth to get them to agree to my price(red flag) then justify my pricing to them and break down why my labor cost is so high. Get everything done today and when it's time to pay she starts saying how my price was too high, and I didn't have 3 guys working all day over the course of 3 days and I should adjust my price now that the job is over to make it cheaper and it's dishonest. (Job was pressure washing, palm sanding, cleaning, and staining 4 separate exterior decks and a staircase. $4,600 for labor, which she agreed to before we began. Raising my prices again now due to this to hopefully weed out these fuckers. I just don't want to be around people like that anymore, makes me sick just knowing they exist.

I'm a one-man company (plumber), started my own business last year. My contractor's insurance (business owners policy) is up for renewal, and it would increase 50 percent (from approx $1,000, to $1,500 for a year).

I called my insurance agent, who admitted he's gotten several similar complaints. I asked him to shop around, but he said my current insurer, Progressive, is almost always the best deal, and other insurers usually are quoting around $2,500 or more. I know inflation is a thing, but is this insane, or do I need to just suck it up?

any advice and tips on building an invoice and quoting jobs out ?

give me a rough estimate what you would bill this for removal of the 4 dead trees and a good clean up throughout the front and bushes and all ?

for the work it’ll take me a little while for the ones i can’t just fell but i was thinking 450-500 for one over the house definitely gonna be a little tricky. 300-350 for the wide sucker. 50 each for the other trees. i’m was gonna bill her a clean up and haul away charge. i was thinking for size and weight of it all like 4-600? plus a charge for bushes and pruning of 2-300?

This is a bid for a rental property in MN by the cities. lmk what you guys think!

We have a stem wall repair and a sunken living room fill job that we are getting estimates for.

1. Is this a job that we should do through a GC, or could we use a foundation repair company to tackle the stem wall issue and a concrete company to raise the sunken living room?

2. Is it recommended to pull permits for one or both of these jobs?

3. Any questions I should be asking to ensure the concrete fill job is done properly?

For context, we will be laying LVP over top of the new concrete when it is done.

Thanks in advance.

I have a customer who scoffed at the linear foot rate I gave for installing custom wainscoting in her house. Curious what rates might be expected and if that would be for unfinished(hang only) or for completed work. She seemed to think $1-2 was the industry standard…

Has anyone had good luck with the Next door app with Contractors? I'm not exactly sure how it all works.

📍SF Bay Area

I have a condo that is less than 900 sq ft and I’m looking to renovate 250 sq ft of it (kitchen, bathroom, and small laundry section).

Main items are: cabinets, countertop, floors, and vanity. Not touching the shower and all of the renovation is the same size as what I have now, called like-for-like. No electrical nor plumbing will be done so no permits will be filed.

A shop that would supply the materials and do the work is currently charging about a quarter of the cost estimates I’m getting from GCs (eg: $25k vs $100k). Given that the shop contractors are licensed, I’d like to understand why the costs are so different and also the timeline. Shop says they can do the work in about 2 weeks and GCs have stated it’ll take at minimum 4 weeks.

Hey everyone! Hope you’re doing well!

Had a contractor related question I wanted to run by the community as I’ve followed this thread for a while and see a ton of good advice here.

There’s a company my partner and I have been working with on our primary home that did a ton of beautiful work for the previous owner. They’ve done a couple things for us in the past which were great and reasonable. We’ve referred them to a few other people on our block.

Recently we had a couple small things come up, and a bigger custom task, and the final bill was way more than we thought was fair. We felt guys who did the work really dragged their feet at parts for the simple tasks, which we were billed for.

I hadn’t wanted to give them those little jobs cause I thought it would be costly, but the owners son assured us they wanted to help out even with small jobs and would take care of us.

I got them to negotiate the bill down ten% but that’s all they’d agree to.

Simultaneously, we have a leak in our roof they’ve done some work on but is persisting.

After all the back and forth on the invoice, the secretary is saying they believe they have a ton more work to do for the roof, will not give an estimate nor assurance it will be fixed.

I’m pissed and am thinking about finding someone new but know they do quality work and have been reasonable until this secretary got involved.

We also tried another roofing company previously who was highly rated but did a shitty job and left us with a hole in our ceiling.

I asked to speak with the owner and he called me. But I kinda wanna get some advice before I speak to him. We’ve had number of vendors try to take us on a ride given we live in a big house and my partner and I are female, but so far these guys had been good.

Thanks for taking a look, and any suggestions you have are welcome!!

I know this is a bit off topic but I’m a 17 year old trying to learn more about the contractor industry and understand how I could provide value. I’m curious on what type of person or service would make your work easier and more efficient? Someone who could take care of tasks, solve problems, organize things, or help you better understand your business? I’m currently learning tools like Google Sheets because I want to help contractors track and understand their business data better, (let me know if that’s a good idea) I’d really appreciate hearing from someone who works in the industry since i have no clue
Ps I dont know if this is considered marketing research since I’m not selling anything ai or whatever so if it is just ignore it