Shopping around

It struck me this morning that although this may be obvious to some, it may not be to others.  Very simply:

Shop around to find the right price and quality balance on services that you require.

I will illustrate with a simple example.  Not too long ago I got back into ground up construction (as part of my portfolio).  I had stopped since the crash of 2008 and was primarily focusing on existing structure value add or buy and hold assets.  However, with the rising demand for construction being so great I decided to wet my feet and price out a small 40 unit apartment building on some land that I had.

Now here is the moral of the story; I went to several different companies to get quotes and the first was $115.00 per sqft to build, which was obviously way out of my budget.  Next I got a quote for $85.00, which was close, but no cigar.  After shopping around a bit longer I got down to my desired price of $64.00.

Lastly, although I am a huge proponent of repeat business, it is important to have several different companies at your disposal.  Why? When you are only building apartments or residential, it is fine for you to have repeat business with the same company, but when you are delving into commercial and industrial (which can be even more exciting) then you will want to definitely shop around.