How to pick the best contractor!

Ok let's talk about general contractors! Love em’ or hate em’... if you are interested in improving your home they are essential. So today I’m going to give you all the tips on how to select the right fit for you! 

Having a negative feeling about them probably means you’ve been burned in the past, but I’m here to tell you there is hope to find the right fit for your next project!

First of all, no matter what type of personality you have…. the most important thing is that you can TRUST them! This seems like the obvious but you would be surprised. Oftentimes clients are eager to start the job, or are enticed by an attractive number… but if you meet them and intuitively feel something is off and not sure if you can trust them. Call the next contractor! 

You should of course be able to trust the person in your home when you're not there, I’m more so talking about not signing a contract with someone that confidently says your remodel will cost exactly 50K when it ends up costing 100K… when you haven’t changed your mind on anything… orrrr they say it will take 3 months and it takes 3 years… 

Keep in mind due to inflation and backorders, right now is still a complicated time for contractors to manage jobs, so a little more patience is necessary than before. 

So if price and timeline are important be sure to express that to your contractor so that there is open communication regarding this, and so they can set realistic expectations for you. 

As I mentioned on Instagram, if you are getting multiple bids, I generally advise clients to not make a decision based off the lowest bid, particularly if it is extremely lower than the others [red flag!].  But there are several factors at play regarding what makes up a bid, level of quality, level of service, business overhead, etc.

A one man operation might have a lower overhead which could be reflected in the pricing but also has a smaller team so then I would talk about timelines. A bigger team might have more people to help make things go faster but then I would talk about quality and craftsmanship…

The tricky part about selecting a general contractor is that you have unique needs and personality and unfortunately so do they:) So I say it’s important to get very clear on your needs, the scope, and what you are looking for in a contractor before you start reaching out to them. 

Is the quality and aesthetics the most important thing? Or is it timeline? or budget? Or maybe even just open communication? 

There are essentially two ways to work with a contractor, time and materials [T&M] or getting a bid [although in the past few years I have also seen more of a hybrid as well].

TIME AND MATERIALS: the contractor literally just tracks his or her time, and adds up all incurred costs, and charges you just that. 

BID: Depending on the scope, this can take quite a bit of time and planning on the contractors part, so some contractors [rightfully so] charge for this. But by the end you should have a general price, defined scope of work, and timeline of how long the job will take. 

I have seen both ways work out great for clients but I will say if you're going down the T&M route there needs to be an extreme amount of trust and flexibility in your budget and timeline. Personally, I prefer getting a bid so there are set expectations and I know what things will cost before moving forward. 

If you want to work with a particular contractor and they are explaining how they don't have time to give bids right now, I would offer to pay for their time to create a bid for your project. This shows them you are serious and if they aren't willing to do that… [red flag! :) ] call the next contractor!

Other things to consider, the contractor does not need to be your best friend! Unless of course you are looking for a new one:) Contractors might be a little more chatty when you first meet with them because they are trying to connect and probably gauge your personality just as you are with them. But once the work begins I like to find a balance of someone I can have light humor with but is also professional and a hard worker. I’m not looking for someone that is going to go off about their deepest darkest secrets for hours every morning over coffee…[you would be surprised what I’ve heard and experienced over the years].  You need to enjoy being around them because you will be spending a lot of time with them, but they don’t need to be your best friend!

How to know if my project even needs a general contractor? 

Ok so now that we’ve gone over how to find a good fit for you, let's talk about if you're trying to decide if you even need a general contractor. Sometimes on smaller jobs homeowners will select sub contractors [or do the work themselves] and manage the job instead of hiring a general contractor. 

If you are inexperienced and willing to learn how to do the work yourself.  My first question is… how much time do you have? If you are very busy and not excited about problem solving in your free time…. I would stop the conversation right there and advise you to hire a professional! 

It’s going to be more stressful than it needs to be and I can honestly say by the time you factor your time, the tools, and most likely having to redo things due to your experience…. you will save alot of time and potentially money by hiring a professional.  

Generally if you are already a busy person, throwing on managing a construction project is going to be stressful. There is an art to scheduling sub contractors, managing + purchasing materials and especially if you're going to throw in you doing any of the labor, its alot of work!

My rule of thumb is if there are 3 or more trades involved, find a general contractor. Meaning if you are just wanting a new backsplash and paint in your kitchen, this is more doable to tackle managing it by yourself. 

But if you're needing new tile, paint and countertops I would advise to hire a professional to oversee that type of project… because then I generally would say might as well talk about a new sink, faucet….cabinetry…hardware…etc. This is referred to as “scope creep”, it’s a thing. And very real unfortunately:) and is a whole other topic which I will talk about another day!

My goal when guiding clients is just to make sure they are making the right decisions if they aren’t doing a full remodel (EX. paint and countertops only) to make sure your not going to do things twice down the road!

Ok so there you have it! Probably way more than you thought you needed to know but all very important stuff to be thinking about if your going to start a project. Let me know if you have questions and or comments because as you can see I clearly love to talk about this stuff!! 

Much Love + Big Hugs!