How most people get a contractor’s bid
Most people look at magazines, home-stores, and websites. They watch DIY shows, see something they like at a friend’s or neighbor’s. Often, they’ll have a budget in mind even if they don’t know what that’ll buy.
Before ever writing anything down, they’ll call a recommended contractor to come out and give an estimate. The contractor asks questions and often has suggestions and ideas. So the two will settle on an understanding, and the contractor get the homeowner an estimate.
Pricing homeowner’s get are typically higher than expected. And since it’s impossible to compare one bid, they’ll often call another contractor and go through that whole process again.
The process feels easy, but what they don’t realize; the scope changes with new information, idea, suggestion, and contractor’s interpretation.
The result is wildly varied and incomparable prices, driving them to negotiate with the cheapest contractor, which almost-never ends up as desired.
The way to get the contractor’s best price, is to use Conductor’s Competitive Bid Strategy.