Hey Jordan... I am a contractor and time is money. Repeat business from a client who I have done work for in the past warrants a no monetary visit. My advice to you is to take plenty of pictures of the projects you wish to address, email them to your potential contractor, and they should be able to ballpark some numbers for you. Later in the negotiation process, he/she will be less likely to charge a fee to further explore what needs to be done first hand. Beware of the guy/gal who can stop by anytime... this usually means they are not working or they sub out most of the work.
I guess it depends if you know the contractor. You can always get three quotes and tell them up front you will hire the person with the best price and quality of work
If you want to pick their brain and take their time I would offer them cash.. maybe 75 bucks..? Maybe you could set it up to look a few properties that are near by for that. If you want them to work with you in the future I would respect their time. Once you provide some work for a contractor they are usually more than happy to check out properties for free.
Hey Jordan... I am a contractor and time is money. Repeat business from a client who I have done work for in the past warrants a no monetary visit. My advice to you is to take plenty of pictures of the projects you wish to address, email them to your potential contractor, and they should be able to ballpark some numbers for you. Later in the negotiation process, he/she will be less likely to charge a fee to further explore what needs to be done first hand. Beware of the guy/gal who can stop by anytime... this usually means they are not working or they sub out most of the work.
Although my husband and I can come up with a fairly accurate repair estimate by now. I still bring a contractor with us whenever possible, mainly because they are willing to crawl into dark spaces that you couldn't pay me enough to do. Sometimes they find things that I wouldn't have otherwise known about. Definitely worthwhile. As a side note, I've never had to pay a contract to go with me. They assume the job will be theirs if you go ahead with the purchase.
@Jordan Archer if you do bring a contractor out follow then and learn as you go. If they go in the crawl space follow right behind them and have them point out things to you. Then later on you will know what your looking at and be able to find things on your own.