I have been having to deal with contractors a bunch lately because I have a project I need to get done. I can't wait to blog about it but I haven't signed any contracts yet. It sounds super mysterious, but we are just dealing with the city on how to bring something up to code and we can't make a contract until we figure that out.
Anyway....the soonest I could get a guy to work on anything is a month out. Most of the guys I talked to were booked until FALL. One guy said Oct to Dec! That's pretty much winter. I think anyone who wanted to work could walk down to any construction site and be hired immediately as an apprentice. Hell, when I drive by construction sites I think even I could even get a job doing that if I wanted to. I think they would hire anyone with a pulse. That is how tight the construction labor market is right now.
As a side note - Mr S. and I are re-watching Flipping Out. I'm normally not that into those home improvement shows, but this one came out in 2007 as I was gutting and trying to flip what is now my rental. Contractors will make you lose your mind and the show is really more about that. And at the time the real estate market was beginning to fall off a cliff. In 2007 no one knew how deep this would run. We knew it would be painful, but just a short amount of painful.
Recessions used to be three years. You could set your watch to them. I bought my rental two years into the recession. But really that was just the top of the roller coaster ride.
Rewatching it is sort of wild because in season one none of us knew what was coming next. Now you know the whole story and it's a little like reliving history. It's funny in a different way now because hindsight is always 20/20.
You just watch it with the realization of the pain that was going to reign down in the coming years. Sort of like watching guys get hit in the balls. It's funny but everyone flinches and says ooooooh. Right?
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Most municipalities will permit the owner to to the work themselves as long as the own the property. The appropriate licenses will need to be purchased. Inspections will still have to be passed. But unless this requires a tremendous amount of work, (gutting all of the plumbing for example), I would suggest a trip to the library and some home repair books.
ReplyDeleteOh..... they don't cover this project in home repair books. It's not a DIY project by any stretch of the imagination. It's gonna be a good one. But I don't like to count my chickens before they are hatched, so until everyone contracts up - I don't want to start talking about it too much yet. It's not a boring kitchen or bath remodel. And definitely not your run of the mill project.
ReplyDeleteWhile I'm a pretty decent weekend warrior, every once in a while it's good to hire a contractor so you can steal their contractor knowledge and refresh yourself on codes.
I appreciate the help though.