{"id":44,"date":"2009-11-30T22:29:57","date_gmt":"2009-12-01T05:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.constructonomics.com\/blog\/?p=44"},"modified":"2019-12-01T21:41:13","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T04:41:13","slug":"constructonomics-gets-smoked-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/30\/constructonomics-gets-smoked-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Constructonomics Gets Smoked Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I lived in Avon, CO, a little town about ten miles west of Vail ski resort, the local news was a little sparse at ti\"smoking-gun\"mes, especially during the summer and fall.\u00a0 I found myself, on a few occasions,\u00a0reading up on the pre-season performance of the volleyball team at the local middle school.\u00a0\u00a0There were some rough months out in the Vail Valley.\u00a0 So with all kinds of juicy gossip flying around the web these days, I’m going to give you some more with the public bid results for the remodel of the BerksCounty Library and Coroners office in Leesport, PA.\u00a0 That’s right, you might as well close the browser\u00a0ofTMZ.com\u00a0because this is\u00a0some of the best news out there.\u00a0 I didn’t run into a tree\u00a0or a fire hydrant on the way to the bid, but if I had, it would not have mattered because Constructonomics was defeated in this competive bid.<\/p>\n

In fact, I was blown out of the water.\u00a0 The\u00a0winning bid was a good 30%\u00a0below the number I submitted.\u00a0 This was honestly shocking for me.\u00a0 I thought I could be very competitive with a straight 10% mark-up over sub\u00a0numbers.\u00a0\u00a0And as far as the mark-up goes, I\u00a0probably was very competitive.\u00a0 However, I believe that the main difference lies in the numbers other contractors were getting from subs in any type of job, right now you can find many in the plumbing service with\u00a0https:\/\/allserviceplumbers.com\/locations\/<\/a>\u00a0 and electric system repairs.<\/p>\n

When I approached subcontractors for prices on this job,\u00a0nobody really knows who I am.\u00a0 For all they know, I’m just another contractor that doesn’t want to pay their subs.\u00a0 Without a history of payment with these guys I imagine that the\u00a0prices they give me are far from rock bottom.\u00a0 I think they may be a bit overly conservative\u00a0in this regard because I have a payment\u00a0and performance bond and we can always\u00a0write joint checks from the owner if they are really that concerned with it.\u00a0 But as\u00a0always, uncertainty brings about axienty which ultimitely increases price\u00a0in a hard bid situation.\u00a0 The good ol’ boys from Leesport who are accostomed to doing business with each other will feel much more comfortable giving numbers with razor thin profit margins to each other.<\/p>\n

I was also hurt by that fact that some\u00a0contractors\u00a0to whom I solicited bid and bond<\/a> just flat out ignored me.\u00a0 So\u00a0in some cases I only recieved one bid for\u00a0parts of the work.\u00a0 This was the case for paving, which\u00a0was about\u00a030% of the total project cost.\u00a0 By getting at least\u00a0three bids for each trade, you ensure a very competitive price on which to add your mark-up.\u00a0 It’s tough being the new guy.<\/p>\n

I spent all week putting this bid together and it turned out to put no money in my pocket.\u00a0 However, I think I realized that my chances of being competitive in a hard public bid situation\u00a0are slim and none.\u00a0 I do not yet have the relationships built up with subcontractors to play this game well.\u00a0 I think I’m going to modify my strategy a bit and go after private clients a bit more.\u00a0\u00a0Hopefully, financing will\u00a0loosen in the coming months and I will be able to get some work in the door, ’cause man, I need it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I lived in Avon, CO, a little town about ten miles west of Vail ski resort, the local news was a little sparse at times, especially during the summer and fall.\u00a0 I found myself, on a few occasions,\u00a0reading up on the pre-season performance of the volleyball team at the local middle school.\u00a0\u00a0There were some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11,3,4,5,12],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-competitive-bid","tag-construction-blog","tag-construction-economics","tag-john-poole","tag-public-bid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1860,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/1860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constructonomics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}