General Contractor question

Hello everyone,

My husband is a licensed general contractor and was currently laid off due to economic conditions. We have been applying for jobs all over but I had a thought…he has a lot of experience about estimating repairs for both commercial and residential. I am thinking maybe investors or insurance companies could use this kind of service.

Does anyone have any information at all as to this kind of service where a licensed contractor could come in and give an estimate (labor and materials) on a variety of jobs? Thank you for any information you can give.

I am not sure what you are asking but i will try yo respond to your question.
Investors and insurance companies do use contractors for estimating repairs. However we expect this service to be free as part of getting the job.
Banks are the only ones that may pay for a quote so they can analyze there position on a piece of property.
I hope I have answered your question.
Redhawk

Wholesalers usually have this covered but not always or not new ones, so I’d get to know some of them. A side benefit to this is maybe it might lead to some rehab work for your husband. Herbster

This is an interesting idea. I wonder whether this is a service that that you could market to individual home owners, assuming you had a cheap way to reach them. Might home owners, for example, be willing to pay a small consultation fee to know whether the quotes they have received from contractors are fair. In this scenario you would be acting as an unbiased agent since you would have no financial interest in the deal.

terryall,

My only reservation is that one contractor’s estimate may be useful for a broadbrush evaluation of a deal, but it does not reflect the cost of any other contractor to actually do the job, and you need the estimate from the contractor who’s going to do the job if you expect to hold that contractor to any performance standards of value.

Nope, why would they? Claims adjusters, licensed home inspectors and licensed appraisalists are already doing that job. If I need an estimate on buying a short sale and knowing what work is involved to make it marketable and whether it makes financial sense, I’m going to hire either a licensed home inspector or a licensed appraisalist because if they make a huge mistake on costs due to incompetence, I can sue their errors and omissions insurance provider. What’s my recourse if the gc’s estimate ends up being way out of whack?