Now that we have our (almost) final drawings in hand, we can start getting bids. While it would have been nice to have been meeting contractors and getting bids over the past several months, until you have drawings in-hand, many contractors aren’t going to want to spend the time and energy putting together bids. They don’t have the detail they need and they know that things are subject to change.
Even at this point, we’re likely several months away from breaking ground, and many contractors aren’t going to be excited about putting together bids (since the work is many months away), but once they see the drawings, they know the project is real and they know we’ll be hiring someone to do the work…generally, that’s enough incentive to get them to put together a bid, even if it’s still very early.
Unfortunately, given that we haven’t done a lot of work in Maryland yet, I still don’t know what typical pricing should be. So, I’ll be contacting lots of contractors in each field and getting a general sense of what things cost around here. Some of the contractors are referrals from other investors, some are names I’ve gotten from friends/neighbors and some are people I’m just finding on Craigslist and online. Obviously, anyone with a reference would be preferred over anyone I contact randomly, but I like to get lots of bids and that’s the best way I know how.
As the bids start coming in, I’ll post updates…
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