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How to hire a Remodeling Contractor

by Lee Seward Remodeling, building a house, Construction, construction companies, construction contractor, construction contractors, Contractors, Custom Homes, general contractor services, Home For Sale, Home Remodeling, Housing Market, licensed contractors, local building contractor, local construction company, new home construction, Property For Sale, Real Estate, Rebuilding Homes, Renovation, Repairing Home, small construction companies, Subcontractors

Remodeling in Pinellas County

  New Kitchen or Bathroom is very important to you and your Family. The added space or versatility in use or just updating the design to something current requires selecting a licensed contractor to do the work. 

  There are many steps in the process and everyone wants to save money. What typically happens is the cheapest path becomes the most expensive and sometimes never completed.  Horror story after horror story, clients have paid contractors more than 50% + of the contract and no or little work is completed in place. 

  Make sure you have answers to these questions in writing: 

  • What precisely is the scope of work?

  • How long will the work take overall?

  • What are the work hours/days?

  • Will I be out of a Kitchen for 2 weeks or 9 months?

  • What happens if the project takes a year?

  • What happens if you did not add work but the Contractor wants more money?

  • Who is responsible for managing the subcontractors? 

  • Is the contractor capitalized to operate business?

  Typical issues

  Google Reviews, There are companies you can hire to create multiple positive Google reviews. Companies with lots of positive reviews are not safe from being bad companies. But there is a way to vet the reviews to help pick good from bad. Read the reviews and you will start to see who the company truly is. You can tell the fake ones from real, the anger from clients and the absurdity from the contractors responses. 

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Summary Sheet of New Home Cost

Renovation in Naples

If you follow these steps you will reduce a bad experience.

  1. Read the reviews and responses.

  2. Stay away from narcissistic responses from the contractor.

  3. Meet face to face with the contractor and go over the work ask about all details.

  4. Review the estimate provided by the contractor beyond the price, look for details= product description, qty, cost. 

  5. Ask for written language of time duration and how will the work be managed.

  6. Ask for missing details to be added.

  7. Define what you are expected to do and what you expect from them.

  8. Add language for delays. 

Transparency

  Selecting the contractor because they provided the lower cost doesn’t mean that is the real cost. I have seen this numerous times over the years, clients pick the lower cost.

  Now what?

  The number was wrong, the contractor did not include 1/2 the work and you find out when you are to far in. You signed a contract that has no finish details but pages of how you cannot give a bad review or negative press. 

  If you have no details explaining what is included in your project then do not hire the contractor, this is true for Plumbing, Electrical, HVAC, Roofing, or General Contracting, Lawn Mowing, Car Repair, etc. 

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Contractor not showing up

Above we discussed how to avoid a bad situation, but what if you are already in one?

Here are some things you need to know.

  1. Confront your contractor and request a completion schedule in writing, make sure you paper all interactions going forward.

  2. Request a list of who and what was paid to date along with signed, notarized lien waivers. 

  3. The lien waivers are proof of payment and you need to know who was paid and how much by your contractor.

  4. Regardless of how much you paid your contractor, if the subcontractors were not paid they can legally (within 90 days) lien your home and foreclose on your property.  

  5. The state of Florida is very difficult to obtain a contractor license. You can use this as leverage, all contractors are out of business without a license. Report your contractor, it is a class one felony to take a clients payment and use the funds for anything outside of the clients project. 

  6. Threaten a lawsuit and hire an attorney. Most likely you have paid for the majority of the work and nothing or hardly anything is completed on site. Hire an attorney and go after the liability insurance the contractor has, also you can go after the state for allowing this person to operate. If this has happened to you there is a very high probability there are many more clients in the same situation, find them and share the cost. 

  7. If you have come to terms, sign a new amendment to go with your original contract. Be certain to have an agreed completion date, cost to complete, timeline and penalty for delays,  all missing details of what is included, and all lien waivers that match your overall payments to date and request lien waivers for all future payments.   

  If you are in a bad situation with your current contractor we can help you by providing you with a real cost to complete the work. This can be used to collect the overpayments you have made to your contractor. We can also work for you as an owners rep and help manage your contractor to complete the work at or near the contract price if possible. 

New Bathroom or Kitchen

If you want to remodel your home please contact Iridium Development Inc. We provide free transparent estimates that are detailed. Our contracts are detailed as well and we use industry standard AIA contracts. During the construction process, we provide our clients with login portals to view who we paid and how much we paid each vendor and sub. 

You can be assured our prices are very fair, the cost includes the entire scope of work to perform the work and complete the work. We stand by our timelines and minimize the overall duration. With our full transparency we eliminate stress and drama and that is always our goal. 

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Remodeling

by Lee Seward Home Remodeling, add second story addition, boost real estate earnings, building a house, buying a new home, Construction, construction companies, construction contractor, construction contractors, Contractors, Custom Homes, florida homes for sale, general contractor services, Home Equity, Home For Sale, home mortgage, houses for sale, Housing Market, HVAC Design Critique, investing in real estate, licensed contractors, local building contractor, local construction company, market trends in real estate, mortgage rates, new home construction, new home florida, new homes for sale florida, Paint, Property For Sale, Real Estate, Rebuilding Homes, Remodeling, Renovation, Repairing Home, small construction companies, Subcontractors

Considering Renovating Spring 2024?

 Most people start considering remodeling projects and renovations in the spring. Here are somethings to consider:

  1. Create an overall plan   

  2. Build your team

  3. Obtain pricing from your GC 

  4. Leave enough time

  Create your overall plan and if needed do the work in stages. By staging the work you can do things that fit in your budget now or within your time frame between vacations or school etc.

  Build your team, You may think you need a designer or architect first. You really should put everyone in place early before you start designing. I have seen to often when I deliver a price to a client and they are shocked by the number. They tell me it is impossible the cost should be that much, when actually the cost is really the same cost I would pay for my home. What usually happens is a client will negotiate the Architect to charge $X percent over the cost of the project. The client provides a target construction budget and the drawings are suppose to reflect that. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. Client’s many times cause increased budget costs. It is easy to love something drawn on paper, not so much when it blows up the targeted budget.

  On my end I would rather be involved early and give input to numbers while the design develops. If I understand what my client wants to spend I can help with value engineering while the plans are developed. How do you hire a GC early and protect yourself? Interview and screen your GC candidates. You want transparency and trust, knowledge, willingness to work and proactive. You can lock in your GC based on a percentage fee over cost. You can also hire a GC for pre-construction work and send the final plans out for bid to make a final decision. We usually wrap our pre-construction into the project rather than bang up the client for a few hours of time. 

  Time, drawings and design can take 3 months easy. Between selection and review and revision that is a generous time frame. Then permits can take another 2-3 months depending on the work and sometimes longer. Add the time to make GC selections and such and y0u could lose 8 months in preplanning and prep time. Goodbye spring!  

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Remodeling

Build your team and select a General Contractor who is knowledgeable and can provide you preliminary numbers.

Inside tip: The process of hiring a GC or Architect, Designer etc. is the same process and challenge we face when hiring subcontractors. We look for proactive attitudes, details written on paper, fair pricing, professionalism, and really try hard to weed out the BS.   

Construction Budget

  Details matter, when your G.C. provides your estimate there should be line items with details.  You should be able to see what is going into your project and the cost for each item. If you receive one line item with one cost for the entire project…stay away!  

  Some GC will submit very few line items and one price. They may tell you this and that is included, but if you choose someone who cannot put the details on paper you put yourself in a bad place. We stay away from subcontractors who try to do this with us. The gray area is where all the trouble sits. Full details reduce anxiety, surprises, opens up communication, and if everyone is on the same page then you eliminate problems.    

New Homes

Everything should be transparent when dealing with finances. This image is a budget for one of our projects based on renderings we received from the Architect. We have also contributed costs allocations prior to receiving money from this client. Our clients are able to login and view the finances and details associated with the projects we are completing for them 24-7. 

When you are seriously considering a new home or remodeling project you should put thought into the entire design. Know the cost as you design so you do not over design or over build for your neighborhood.

Stage the work based on financial decisions and how you have to live during the work. It may be better to move out short term or work on one floor (or area) at a time. 

Make certain you know what is included by the estimate and not what someone is speaking to you. Have everything listed with a value, this makes changes later much easier. Tile to plumbing fixtures, cabinet design and drawer count, hardware to ceiling light counts. Details, details, and more details. 

Give yourself time to plan and then execute the work, we spend more time planning the work then executing the work. Who wants to live in a construction zone longer than needed? Plan ahead of time as this saves you the most money and grief. Transparency, if your contractor is not transparent then stay away and part ways. To often clients listen to the sale of the project and jump into contracts that have no real explanation or detail of what the work includes. Some contracts have pages of what is not included and how the contractor is not liable for anything. That is a sign to stay away and pump the brakes. You can easily end up paying a deposit or your first invoice that reflects 50-70% completion of the contract work and only have 5% actually finished on site. 5-10% deposits are standard anymore than that beware. Progress payments are for progress. If there has been no work on your property then you should pay nothing. Be Careful to pay only for what you have received or what has been completed on your home. Do not over pay your contractor and only pay for what was completed.  

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Typical Itemized Estimate
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Renovation

Set yourself up to enjoy the process and succeed. New homes, remodeling, and renovating can and should be fun. Work with people who know what they are doing and remove the stress and drama from your project. 

If you are considering remodeling or renovating or even building a new home please contact us as we would enjoy working with you. 

561-597-0021 or info@iridiumdev.io