All Forum Posts by: Bill Kramer

I'm not stopping. As long as home depot is open, I'm headed to work. It's not that I am desperate for $ or work, but the utilities dont want to hear how you cant pay, or the credit card companies, etc...housing may be giving a break on mortgages/rent but no one else is.

Also, I learned this lesson painting apartments. You keep that cash flowing at all costs, because once you stop that train it takes a while to get it moving again.

If we get a shelter in place order, go ahead and try to enforce it...Bath doctor offers sanitary services, so boom I'm in the critical field and leave me alone.

This should come as a blessing to penny pinching landlords, there's ALOT of factory workers out of work now, so cheap labor is plentiful. That's my only concern, now I am bidding against these guys and losing work (already lost 2 major remodels) because these clowns are coming in at 25% of my prices. Sorry, I'm not gonna work for $10/hr before taxes like those guys.

So I'm gonna make as much as I can before losing too much money to these idiots who are happy with a $400/wk cash payday to supplement their unemployment benefits.

Shameless plug: I am always looking for more work, help me hire these guys so I dont have to compete against them haha.

You want a project manager, not an actual GC.

Especially if you plan to dominate his time. It's the old employee or sub conversation.

A GC has overhead. Most of us aim for 25% O&P (overhead and profit) after our wages. At least, that's my aim and I know I'm not alone, many are higher.

A project manager, give them a salary of 30 to 40k and call it a day, with performance bonuses. especially if you yourself carry a general contractor license.

Think about it, that 2 GC'S worth of costs to pay out. Yours, and his. Save yourself some money and get a project manager.

@Tchaka Owen

Will do. Sometimes multiple points of views can help people see the larger picture and empathize with all sides.

My bad for posting things from a contractor point of view who has worked with and been burned by dozens of investors/property managers.

I'm not here to change everyone's mind, just point out different perspectives. If you cant see things from multiple angles, you're gonna be stuck wondering "why did that happen?" And "How can I prevent this next time?"

That's why I came here. To learn the perspective of my clients, and be a better understanding contractor as well as one day become one of my clients. If I cant learn an investors perspective, I cant become a decent investor.

@Tchaka Owen

Everyone saying that they there was no contract in place are taking an incorrect stance.

What is a contract?

A written agreement where the scope and price are agreed upon. Contractor provided an estimate, which was agreed upon and work began. That's pretty friggin close to the same definition as using a contract.

So I wouldn't use the fact that there was no fancy contract as a means to back out of paying. Again. There was a written scope, and agreement, and permission was given to proceed.

Now, the contractor may not have been 100% crystal clear in his estimate what was gonna be done for that price, and that is his fault. But in reality, I as a contractor even dont go to extremes in my contracts to describe 1000% every minute detail of what's gonna happen.

When the complaints started happening, is where things got sideways. The client by his own admission did not complain to the proper person. So the boss had no way of knowing about issues if his employee decided not to play western union and communicate them to him. That starts you down a bad road, as we can see by the post.

Client didn't communicate to the correct person, then the contractor didn't communicate back to the client in advance whether those were upcharges/or simple mistakes at no extra cost.

This breakdown in communication leads us to where we are. Who has to pay for it?

Not all parties are innocent.

Does the client pay? Well, obviously the contractor is trying to intimidate the client hoping he can use fear/ some sense of a guilty conscience to get paid. And that's why I said, if you dont have a conscience, or have a clear conscience and can sleep at night then dont pay or play those games. Make the contractor earn it. However, some people will develop a fear of the inevitable, or a guilty conscience and eventually pay up. Otherwise these tactics the contractor is using would never work, and he would never use them.

@Tchaka Owen

What you FEEL is right, is what is actually right can be 2 totally different things.

Generally, people who dont pay FEEL they have no need to because they have been wronged in some fashion. Even though they KNOW better.

One common thing nonpaying clients do is scrutinize the work with a microscope. These soulless a holes have no moral compass, and are always a "victim" of a subpar contractor.

I cant count how many employees/subs I have paid in full to just leave my jobsite and not return before the project is complete. I would rather take a short term loss than a long term one to my rep. I just lost about $7500 on my last remodel for that very reason. I could have simply fired them, and made them try to collect. But why deal with all that drama. I do let them know how much $ they are walking away from yearly just to let it sting a little more.

@Daniel Adler

You wouldn't be the first person to not pay a contractor. Dont sweat it, it can be a monster pain in the but for us contractors to get paid.

No contract, no money. Call his bluff. What's he gonna do, lien a property you have no intention to sell? His next step would be to get a judgement, but again he is suing your company that hires him (not you). And when (if) he does win his judgement, he then has to take even more steps to garnish wages/seize assets/foreclose the lien/etc...

In short, this guy is gonna have to take YEARS to actually force you to pay. So the real question is: do you have a conscience? Most people dont, and will gladly just not pay up for whatever reason.

@Domonick Dangerfield

The secret to carpet is to find a good carpet cleaner company. I have one that charges an insane low price, can color match stains, and if all else fails patch the stain.

Call up apartment complexes and talk to maintenance supervisors and see who they use. At $35 to $50/room it can become a no brainers. Especially if your trying to maximize the life before switching over to vinyl.

If you have existing carpet, no need to totally abandon it. As you now have to pay labor to yank up tack strips, and a billion staples. Which is not fun for us contractors to do.

Sell before all the unpaid mechanics lien mature and can be foreclosed, lol

Multifamily is chock full of non paying owners. I've never understood why those guys never pay their contractors. Can anyone enlighten me? Mom and pops pay better than corporations, why is that?

Some of Mr. Wise's lawyers responses were downright hilarious. Definitely got a good chuckle reading all of that.

Savage

@Aaron Gorum

Gotcha.

Just keep on his butt, and with hold the $$ but get a plan b going. He either will fix it, or ghost you. Bad contractors give us all bad names.