Fliperati

I was browsing through one of my favorite blogs the other day and decided to check the comment section of a shout-out they gave me earlier this month to see if there was any new feedback.  That’s when I came across the comment below, which I couldn’t resist quoting and responding to:

“I wouldn’t hire anybody from any of those matching websites. Don’t you want workers who are in demand because of their good work?

Get references from friends and aquantances or even other workers(plumbers, electricans, etc.)

This guy will unfortunately probable end up losing money and having all sorts of headaches unless he hires one great contractor to oversee the whole thing.

By the way, house prices are falling fast, so he better hurry up!”

                           -Anonymous

I believe Anonymous is referencing the contractor-finder website I used where you submit a description of the work you need and the site administrators farm it out to someone on their pre-approved list of contractors.  While I agree that finding a contractor through a referral is probably one of the best tried-and-true methods, this approach proved difficult for me as a flipper working in an unfamiliar neighborhood.  I did not have any local friends to get references from and the references I got from other workers did not work out.  In fact, most of the referrals I got never returned my calls or disappeared after coming to do the initial estimate, which may be a sign of them being good and in high-demand, but they were useless to me in the end.

Meanwhile, the contractor I found through the web service (“Clyde”) turned out to be the very best of the bunch I interviewed and has done a great job so far.  He told me he would finish the drywall and other miscellaneous jobs in three weeks and is 95% done after 16 days.  The quality of his crew’s work has met or exceeded my expectations in every part of the house (I’ll post new pictures soon) and I’ve even hired him to do a few additional jobs when the drywall is done.  My only complaint is that his workers have been using my tools (which had just been sitting in the kitchen pantry) and they’ve gotten really dirty (my hammer and ladder are splattered with drywall joint compound for example), but that’s just me being anal retentive.

As for losing money, you’ll notice in my last post that I recently re-examined the local housing market and have not felt the need to adjust my target resale price.  Granted, I was a bit befuddled by using comps to gauge home prices in my area, but I do not believe there has been any significant decline in the local housing market since I originally set my target resale price nearly two months ago.  Since I my renovation costs are inline with my original budget and the market hasn’t dramatically shifted downward, I’m optimistic about proving Anonymous wrong when I flip this house with a healthy profit.