New to Real Estate · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2023 · 83 posts · 29 votes
Hi everyone. One thing that seems to come up is how hard it is to compare contractor bids when every quote is written differently. It can also be tough to quickly spot what’s missing or what is unclear before the work starts. I was playing around with ChatGPT and thought this was a pretty useful way to handle it. Wanted to share in the off-chance it can help someone else. 1. Paste 2 or 3 contractor quotes into one doc.
2.
Ask ChatGPT to break them into line items and flag anything missing or unclear.
3.
Use that output to ask better follow-up questions before choosing a bid.
Seemed like a solid way to make bid comparisons a little easier. May be some people already doing something similar, but hope this helps someone out there!
That’s a solid starting point. The part I’d add is forcing every bid into the same scope sheet before you compare price, otherwise one contractor included haul-off, permit pickup, and patch/paint while another didn’t and the numbers look cleaner than they really are. The way I handle it is by breaking every quote into labor, materials, allowances, exclusions, schedule, and who owns change orders, then I send the same follow-up questions to all three. On older retail and industrial spaces, the misses are usually in demo, electrical upgrades, ADA items, and after-hours work, so that’s where I’d push hardest before awarding anything.