Problem Solvers! What what would you do in this situation?

[Yeji Hwang]

Hi Bigger Pockets Community,
the company I am interning at is facing an issue. We are trying to creatively find a more affordable solution that will allow us to meet our goal of starting the build later this fall.

The Problem: A section of our lot had a swampy area. An engineer recommended us to dig out two feet of the entire section and fill it with topsoil. To remove the “bad dirt” and fill it with topsoil we have been quoted 30 grand by our site contractor.

There’s excess land that we could pull topsoil from, and “store” the “bad” dirt. The lot is small so it would be inconvenient trying to get our site contractor to be on board with this idea…

How would you deal with a challenge like this? How have you dealt with similar scenarios like this one?

[Ryan Normand]

Apologies for stating the obvious, but could you just build somewhere else on the lot? Or is the whole thing a swamp? The easiest and most cost effective solution would just be to not build on a swamp.

Also, get multiple bids to make sure your site contractor isn't over-estimating.

Ask your engineer if there are other foundation options that wouldn't require cutting and filling the whole site.