The Scenario…

You are a homeowner considering a remodeling project and you want the best price possible without sacrificing quality. First you should hire a residential designer, like Home Options Design – http://www.HomeOptionsDesign.com to draw some preliminary plans to show a “road map” of what the finished product should look like. The reason I recommend preliminary plans is because they will show enough detail to visualize the final project, to qualify your budget, and sufficient enough for any contractor to bid the project. If you end up not doing the project, you haven’t spent that much out of pocket. You should only spend the minimum on plans upfront, until you make sure the project can be built within your intended budget. 

You have preliminary plans, now what?

After you complete the preliminary plans you can start to talk with local remodeling contractors, distributing the plans to them in order to get several remodeling quotes. All contractors selected have the same plans so the prices should be pretty close, right? WRONG! Even though your plans specify certain items, it is unlikely you spent enough money to detail out all items involved in the construction of the project. This leaves some of the detail to the imagination of the remodeler that is pricing the project. He will have to make certain assumptions and these vary from contractor to contractor. This is one reason your prices will vary from contracting firm to contracting firm. Most contractors use subcontractors for certain aspects of a remodeling project and that is another reason prices can vary quite a bit from remodeling contractor to remodeling contractor.

I got three prices. Shouldn’t I go with the middle of the road price?

Now that you have secured three prices from reputable remodeling contractors you are having a difficult time deciphering why there is so much price variance and which contractor you should choose. There is always that old philosophy of going with the middle of the road price….basically you throw out the cheapest contractor’s price (you feel they obviously forgot something and you smell change orders), throw out the highest contractor’s price (you feel they obviously are covering ALL their bases) , and go with the one in the middle (seems like the safe bet). Most people feel going with the middle of the road contractor is in their best interests. While this philosophy can be a decent one, you may have just cost yourself thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

How to make sure you don’t leave those thousands of dollars on the table!

In order to dechipher various remodeling contracts, the materials included, and other various details you should hire a professional project manager, such as Home Options Design, http://www.HomeOptionsDesign.com This type of expertise only comes from years of experience, over 25 years of remodeling experience to be exact. Home Options Design’s project managment services could save you tens of thousands of dollars by reviewing and helping you interpret exactly what is included in each contract and acting as the OWNER’s REPRESENTATIVE, not the Contractor. This is just one way. Please contact Home Options Design for a free in home consultation to discuss our project management services and other ways that we can save you money and headaches, you will be glad you did.