Need advice. Go. I have a card from a contractor, it has a license number on it but I can't figure out what the license is for. The number starts with a B followed by five numbers. I'm on the phone with the state licensing board, on HOLD, HOLD please. Also, these guys are seriously slimy as hell. Is it better not to tell them I have flood insurance and negotiate outside of the insurance paradigm? I have a guy who wants to know my decutible, wants meet my insurance guy, all this stuff. He seems to want to haggle directly with my insurance. I hate dealing with these guys. I have another contractor who wants us to remove everything from the house and he's talking about stage 1, stage 2, etc. but won't explain what exactly is in each stage. He gave us a little quote sheet that just has a bunch of check marks in different categories, doesn't explain squat. Frustrating.
1) If your contractor is going to work with your insurance , his charge is going to be what insurance pays. This has upside and downside. The upside is he will haggle with insurance and probably uses their quoting system, Xactimate. He can help you get more money if the estimate is low. The downside is the money is his. He will do exactly what the estimate says for that price. So if you get $8000 for flooring he's going to charge you $8000 even if the material and labor only costs $7000. That's not wrong either, he's taking the markup. On some items he'll make more and on other she'll make less. 2) If you use someone outside of insurance you have the chance to get more value. The chance mind you, it's not guaranteed. For example, same scenario above that $1000 could be money you use to upgrade your trim or something. In scenario 1 that upgrade cost you extra money. In scenario 2 you might be able to squeeze extra dollars to pay for upgrades or changes.
If you think the guy is slimy as hell, I suggest you walk away. I know it's a seller's market right now because there is so much demand. But, even if he doesn't screw you, you'll always wonder if he did without you knowing. Find someone who gives you some confidence.
Totally agreed. If you have any doubt whatsoever run away. If you want a referral, send me a message through the board. I can give you one that works with insurance that I trust and a family member that works outside of insurance that I trust. Again, upside/downside both ways. Guy outside of insurance isn't going to be help you get more money if you think the estimate from insurance is low but guy that works with insurance isn't going to pass any savings on to you.
That's the problem. Each one I meet with gives me a sense that they're shady in some way. It's creepy. Also, I prefer to have everything written down and signed but they want to do like a slip of paper with a couple scribbles on it and then they want half of the money down, $15k. Like... what?
Lol hell no. I knew this was going to happen. These guys are all scammers and will bounce the minute you cut them a check. A reputable contractor will itemize everything. You can thank the lenient state laws here that allow contractors to work without licenses so they can just slap a sticker on their truck and call themselves "Disasters R Us Contracting" or whatever. Most decent contractors are up to their eyeballs right now and will chase the commercial work. Always get someone as a referral, never these slimy door to door salesmen.
We got our demo contractor from a referral. He did a good job but his invoice did not reflect the actual work he did. We removed the drywall and floorboards ourselves and he tried to charge us for it. I measured the work he did and corrected his numbers and sent it to him. He said the fairest he could get is try to talk to our adjuster and get them to approve it. He called the next day and we talked for a while. What he didn't know is insurance already paid us our initial amount and that the adjuster saw the work we did ourselves and took lots of pictures. I told him all of this and threw around words like fraud and stuff. Next day I get a call that he is a man of his word and he was dropping $15k off of the bill. They are so damn shady. They want as much as they can get. We need the extra for our belongings. We had a lot of old furniture and all of it was trashed. Doubt we will get much for it. On a side note, his estimate for home repair is over $100k more than the second most expensive. Someone will fall for it.
