Bildwise Indianapolis - Bildwise or Bildworst?
My independent review of Bildwise Indianapolis. To start my selection process, I had done a review and followed some of the posts of the staff of Bildwise. I interviewed them as well as some other contractors before selecting them.
I found their staff (Ryan Poske and Rich Bonisa) and team to be knowledgeable and reasonable.
The services I was looking for was a Project Management team that could manage my project remotely and make sure to keep my project on budget and schedule from start to finish. ‘Boots on the ground’ as we like to say in this business. This major project is a 1-300k flip project in a desirable neighborhood of Indianapolis.
I don’t mind paying their PM fee 4000-5000 dollars (for my larger project) in order to manage this project from start to finish, and follow up with contractors for me. I also don’t mind them taking a cut of the total rehab bill on the back end. My view is as a long as they do their job and my project gets completed on time, I’m ok with my team getting compensated well.
I chose to first select Bildwise to manage a smaller rehab project in Indianapolis first. This project I had with them that was completed somewhat late, but within a fairly reasonable amount of time. I deemed that acceptable, and I considered them for a larger project with hard money.
Before launching the project I made it clear that for this project with hard money we would need one of their better more trusted contractor teams and that I expected them to manage this one more closely. I stressed that we would need to make sure this one stayed on budget and on the time schedule.
During the rehab there were some setbacks without fault such as hidden fire damage that we had to address with a costly increase to our budget. However as the project moved along Buildwise had issues managing their hand-selected contractor.The contractor Jonah & Eugene quality construction LLC would be away from the job more and more days. They would start to request more money earlier, and complete less work. My involvement got to the point where it seemed like a full time job following up with Buildwise for an update on their contractor. This went on for months and when a 5 month project is about 2 months late and nowhere near finished there is a major problem.
During this problem I would constantly recommend solutions such as cutting ties with this contractor and filling another one in. It got to the point where no solution from Bildwise seemed near. In the end I flew down to talk with Bildwise and fire them in person.
I was quite disappointed in the response I got from them as well. I was expecting them to take some responsibility for not being able to manage the contractor they selected. After discussions with Ryan, I got the impression he felt all the risk of this project was assumed by me; and he wasn’t obligated to refund any of the Project Management fee for failing to manage this project. Project Management and Responsibility go hand in hand. After all the role of Project manager by definition includes being responsible for monitoring, managing, controlling and closing a project. And this project missed that mark by a wide margin.
Now we can accept that construction contracts often go over the allocated time budget. Exceptions can be made.But there is a difference between small slips and major failures. And taking ownership and responsibility is very important in this industry. Integrity is something that is earned, often when times are tough. Unfortunately this was a missed opportunity for Buildwise in regards to building integrity.
Since then, I’ve noticed their Better Business Bureau rating is a C (A+ to F) with complaints filed against them (as of the writing of this article).
In hindsight I would have saved money and time, had I done the Project Management myself from the start. I could have done more too, I could have asked more about what remedies were in place for when a project slips. In summary, I do believe there is room for these PM service companies if they are done right. However managing contractors is not always an easy task, even if the project manager is local.
Dolce Deodato
