Home Renovation Bids Need Definition
Realtors call us to help sell properties by having us evaluate and budget repairs and improvements to their listings and purchases. These evaluations sometimes lead to work for our construction company. We are not in the home inspection business but having built and remodeled thousands of homes, we usually can provide useful information for the realtor and their client.
Recently a call came in on a Friday afternoon from a real estate agent that we did not know but were very familiar with her brokerage company. The agent’s company has done lots of business with our firm and we have a lot of respect for the owners and management team. So when an agent from this real estate company calls we give them top priority.
My Friday afternoon phone conversation with the new agent revealed that the agent’s buyer had made an offer on a home and the offer expired at the end of the next day. The agent went on to explain that she had knowledge that the house had termite damage and her buyer needed to know the cost of repairing the termite damage. The realtor emphasized the need to have this termite repair bid by Saturday at 4pm. I explained that I would do my best to accommodate the short notice but I needed some information to proceed. Some of my questions were: What is the extent of the termite damage? Where is the termite damage? Is there structural damage? What is the scope of the repair?
The realtor did not have an answer to any of my questions. However, she insisted she still needed me to come to the property the next day so my “bid” could be presented to the potential buyer for evaluation. When I asked the realtor how she and the buyer would be able to evaluate a bid with no defined scope of work she became annoyed with me and stated “my client does not know anything about construction and I can not let him make his decision based on one bid.” I explained to the realtor that 30 bids provided without a qualified description of the scope of work would be no more useful to her or the client than one bid. I went on to let the realtor know that we would need to decline from providing one of the several bids that she felt compelled to obtain.
I tried to explain to the realtor that multiple bids without a defined project is a waste of everyone’s time. Moreover, there is no way to accurately assess and compare bids provided without a scope of work. While the realtor did not disagree with me she was determined that by obtaining “bids” she was going to make sure her client was protected from making an uninformed and potentially bad purchase. I did not have the time or influence with this realtor to dispel her erroneous logic.
Michael Stein, The Gentleman Builder, is a home building and remodeling expert located in Bonita Springs, Florida. Michael has over
twenty-seven years experience in the home building and real estate development
business and has built thousands of home throughout the United States.