Yep – hubby does commercial.. primarily does hospitals, medical office buildings (MOB) and commercial office buildings. That last part is as dead as it can be in this market. But he’s back to work, thank goodness. He doesn’t do residential because he’s found the customers don’t have the cost/benefit tradeoff mindsets… they want high end finishes but low prices – and they’re emotionally invested. They don’t seem to understand that upgrading features/finishes adds to the price. Plus it’s harder to get paid in residential architecture.
Oh – and our second contractor was better than the first, but still ripped us off. (Lied about the costs of things on allowance items.) We were labeled “difficult customers” because we wanted things built to the bid set specs and receipts for allowance items. I doubt we’ll never hire a contractor again. If it can’t be done by hubby and I – it won’t get done.
My husbands advice on contractors for jobs over 20k… spend the extra 10% to get a performance bond that covers the full price of the contract. If it’s hard to get, that’s a red flag about the contractor. The bonding company will pay out if things go wrong. (State only requires $20k bond.)
And understand that the CSLB website does not disclose filed complaints until they’ve fully vetted the complaint – which can take a full year. Most consumers give up before that. So a clean license doesn’t mean no complaints filed.
Checking court records doesn’t help either – most contractors call for binding arbitration – no public database of filed claims with arbitration.
