Investor · Rochester, NY · Member since 2011 · 16 posts · 1 vote
Hello,
I have 10 unit 10,000 square foot apartment building that I have acquired in need of complete gut rehab. The good news is I have a lined up a lender to fund the majority of the project. Currently I am scouring the internet to find a software that offers a professional and very detailed look, that I can present to our lender. Does anyone have a recommendation?
Investor · Bellingham, WA · Member since 2010 · 308 posts · 230 votes
12y
@Mark Caramanna two questions: Is this a one off project or will you be doing more rehabs as GC? Have you done and construction contracting before? If this is your first time I recommend hiring someone with GC experience in your type of project to spec out the project and do a rough estimate that you can tighten up with bids from subcontractors and suppliers. Software (or an app) can organize your estimate and make it look professional but it won't tell you what to put in the estimate, and that's the make or break part.
If this will be an ongoing part of your business I recommend finding or building the estimating functions as a part of your accounting system so that you can track costs from job to job. The ability to do a post mortem on each to project will allow you to learn from your mistakes and build an institutional memory of what things actually cost so that estimating will be more accurate going forward and be done more efficiently. By integrating the estimating into the accounting system you will also avoid repetitively re-entering everything into multiple programs.
At the construction company I sold we built the whole system in QuickBooks and could turn an estimate into RFQs, POs, and invoices relatively painlessly and it kept track of all the costs, even the ones we missed on the estimate.
Investor · Rochester, NY · Member since 2011 · 16 posts · 1 vote
12y
Hey Paul,
We are the GC on this project. I didn't know if there was any kind of apartment budgeting rehab analyzer out there. I have a basic budgeting software that I have used with lenders, but it is just that, very basic.
Investor · Bellingham, WA · Member since 2010 · 308 posts · 230 votes
12y
@Mark Caramanna two questions: Is this a one off project or will you be doing more rehabs as GC? Have you done and construction contracting before? If this is your first time I recommend hiring someone with GC experience in your type of project to spec out the project and do a rough estimate that you can tighten up with bids from subcontractors and suppliers. Software (or an app) can organize your estimate and make it look professional but it won't tell you what to put in the estimate, and that's the make or break part.
If this will be an ongoing part of your business I recommend finding or building the estimating functions as a part of your accounting system so that you can track costs from job to job. The ability to do a post mortem on each to project will allow you to learn from your mistakes and build an institutional memory of what things actually cost so that estimating will be more accurate going forward and be done more efficiently. By integrating the estimating into the accounting system you will also avoid repetitively re-entering everything into multiple programs.
At the construction company I sold we built the whole system in QuickBooks and could turn an estimate into RFQs, POs, and invoices relatively painlessly and it kept track of all the costs, even the ones we missed on the estimate.
Contractor · New Haven, CT · Member since 2014 · 22 posts · 6 votes
12y
@Mark Caramanna Correct me if I am wrong but it seems you are trying to create a preliminary budget without a set a drawings or specifications?
Usually a sub can provide a budget based on a loose set of guidelines, you'll need to have scope sheets with design standards so everyone knows whats included.
An experienced estimator can helps subs with this fairly easily. They can also create a conceptual estimate using a combination of subs, assemblies and cost data from RSMeans. www.rsmeansonline.com
RSMeans is typically going to be more expensive than your actual costs. They have cost data for residential and light commercial but I think their assemblies are for public/union work only - you'll have to look into that.
If you don't have any estimating experience, don't even think about it, hire someone.
Unless your going to be bidding tons of jobs you don't need estimating software. Bluebeam is the most cost effective software for construction. You can use if for all your takeoff and workflow throughout the duration of a project. You can export your quantities to Excel and finish your estimate there.
Quantum Project Manager is a good second step which has an estimating module, making the process a little easier and provides professional looking proposals. It's also great for all your workflow and tracking during a project. It also works with Quickbooks as @Giovanni Isaksen mentioned is critical for financial tracking. However, Quantum does not scale well since is not web-based.
The only other software I would recommend is Procore which is a web base PM software. It's too expensive for most small to medium sized contractors.
All the other software out there for construction is generally terrible. I've tried them all.