At the end of 2018 I started a project with Bildwise and it was supposed to be a 60 day rehab. My experience mirrored Dolce’s experience. They all spoke very well when I was in the sales/buying phase. Ritch sold me on their process and Ryan made me think they were all over everything during project execution. I would be getting weekly pictures of progress, their “boots on the ground” would keep the contractors on task, their draw/micro draw system would control runaway spending, and they vetted the contractors for quality and finances. I wondered how many contractors would submit to what sounded like a financial audit of sorts but whatever, I was sold.
I closed on the house on Oct 12, 2018 that they had for sale. I paid the Bildwise invoice for “PM Services” and off we went. They prepared the scope and the draw schedule for me to pay to Bildwise for disbursement to the contractor in “micro draws”. The contractor started not long afterwards.
Shortly afterwards the process things started slipping with the contractor. Weekly picture updates weren’t happening, the few that came in seemed to be showing very little progress. I had my property manager start watching the site and it became evident that no one was even showing up to do work.
Up until this point most of our communications were being handled in their portal (aka “Backoffice” as they called it) or by email. Ryan P. and I had a phone call about what was going on. He confirmed that the contractor had been having problems finishing projects for them, so it wasn’t just my project. It was an ongoing issue for them. Great, so how do we solve this and finish the project? Things got silent at that point of the call.
Fast forward several months into the project. The bathrooms, appliances, the tile kitchen backsplash, and a bunch of nagging little details weren’t done yet. I also was missing a few pieces of the granite that need to match and weren’t on site yet. The fence was half painted, they stopped halfway down the side of the house for some reason. The appliances were also not delivered yet, a process that has ultimately taken nearly three weeks and constant pestering to make happen. Waiting some of these things out seemed like the best of the worst options considering how much it would have been to do some of those things from scratch.
I debated about firing the contractor several times. Bildwise was paying the micro draws as “work was being done” such that all the money had apparently been paid out. They had virtually no leverage on the contractor since they were already paid. How do you pay a draw for appliances if there are no appliances? How draws were getting paid, with boots on the ground, and work being verified was beyond my understanding.
I was thinking it was all the contractor but other things on the Bildwise side caused me cause for concern as we were going through it. After I went down two days before the first supposed finish date, I saw how bad the kitchen cabinets were. They had water damage and damaged doors. Not what was marketable for a rehab of this price. Bruce, the site manager who rarely answered the phone or returned any messages, told me that he would get his cabinet lady in there on Monday. Well, two weeks later we had nothing. After a bunch of pestering they replied that it’s all up to the contractor… and he was replying to me asking what the decision was. Bruce was the one getting the quote, Ryan told me on the phone that they don’t do any quotes, and the contractor asking what’s going on made me wonder who was running and doing what on this project. I guess the obvious answer was: no one.
When I asked about firing the contractor Ryan said that I’m the only one that can fire them since they work for me. Ryan could give no reason why they didn’t suggest firing them earlier in the process. Throughout the whole process I was never able to talk to the contractor directly. They work for me, but they won’t give me their number. Seem odd?
Around March 9th I was down looking at the house to see where things were, and it looked about the same as a month prior. I emailed Ryan and asked about the appliances and some other details. He said that’s all up to Tinashe and to post on the backoffice. I emailed back and asked for Tinashe’s contact number. They would not provide it after multiple exchanges. They were clearly not too concerned about doing much in the way of project management or pushing the contractor to stay on track. I asked myself what kind of company would not share the contact information for someone that works for me, that they have no problems reaching. Seem legit?
A few things that should have been in the scope were missed. One case was some missing shingles up by the chimney that was letting water into the attic. The electrical box, whose cover was off since the walkthrough video, had 8-10 wire nuts in it and some double tapped wires. None of the junction boxes in the basement had covers and the old garbage disposal wires were left dangling, and live.
They not only missed some repairs like the roof but knew about code violations like the electrical problems and then claimed all those things were out of scope. The icing for me was that they just ignore most of the comments about these kinds of things until I could get Ryan on the phone. Then, instead of giving me an adder from the contractor, they moved on and did nothing.
On March 22, 2019 I fired Bildwise and the contractor, 161 days after closing. I hit my limit with the “never ending project” and the string of empty promises.
I brought in my own resources and used my rental property manager to finish it. By the end I put in another $15k to what started as a $40k rehab budget. Keep in mind, this was a strictly cosmetic rehab. We weren’t finishing basements or knocking down walls. The original budget was more than reasonable for the planned work.
I drove by the address listed as the contractor’s registered office and was a rundown duplex that has broken windows and in general disrepair. Neither side was habitable. Clearly no one has lived there for a long time yet when questioned Ryan said that they have no problems reaching Tinashe at that address. Um… okay. I found some other prior addresses and they all had overgrown grass or boarded up windows. The prior address for the contractor looked bad but habitable, it didn’t look like anyone was loving there. So much for doing a thorough vetting of contractors, this guy doesn’t even seem to have an office. Or house.
In all I probably made more than a dozen trips to Indy to figure out what was going on in person, so this was clearly not a “hands off, they are my boots on the ground” sort of thing they advertise. (i.e. Where I listened to Ryan on the Simple Wholesaling Podcast #63) I’ve wondered why there weren’t more bad reviews than the one posted by Dolce. All I could figure is that as long as they get a halfway decent contractor that remotely performs, the flaws in the system don’t show through.
At every turn Bildwise seemed to refuse to any responsibility and seem to do nothing but make excuses for their contractor at every turn. The contractor they picked for me performed similarly to what Dolce described for his house. I wondered if we might have even had the same contractor. Bildwise kept paying out the "micro draws" to the contractor such that the project ended with zero left in the coffers to be returned to me. There was a shocking lack of ownership and ability to solve problems.
As the investor I can easily point the finger at myself for failing to find the red flag in all this from the start. Prior to all this Bildwise had a clean BBB record and there was little trace of them except for appearances on places like that podcast or their page here on Bigger Pockets. Should I have driven to find and vet the contractor sooner on my own? Absolutely. Then again, that’s why we are paying for professionals like this.
Since then I still see posts on Bigger Pockets from some people there. This has educated me to have a high degree of skepticism for people that appear as guests on some of these shows as “the expert.” They talk the talk, but when it comes time to walk… they trip.
What confounds me to no end is how some people seem to have great experiences with them are willing to vouch for them, but then others have a nearly 180 degree experience with them. That casts up a dark cloud of credibility.
