Absolutely. I know great contractors who do amazing work. The more important question, however, is who are the contractors that would be a good fit for your project, your investment, and your family. Residential construction is personal, and there is no getting around it: your contractor becomes a part of your family for a little while. They know you and your kids, they work with your schedules, and they even feed your pets. The relationship is close, and it requires a great deal of trust.
For that reason, I almost always recommend that clients select contractors based on their qualifications rather than solely on their pricing. Price is certainly something to consider: your house is most likely your largest investment, and it is certainly critical to evaluate where and how you spend money related to that investment. However, I encourage my clients to consider a slightly different process from the traditional design/bid/build, whereby we solicit responses to requests for qualifications (RFQs) before design documents are completed rather than making a selection based on pricing after those drawings are finished. We work together to develop a list of priorities in addition to costs that are important to them and to their project, asking not only about pricing structure, but also about experience with the particular type and scope of the project, references from owners with similar projects, how they would propose to handle the contract and billing, and how they would staff and schedule the project. These types of questions often yield information that a bid doesn’t, and the contractors who take the time to answer the questions are generally enthusiastic about the opportunity to collaborate. It provides a way for contractors to tell potential clients about the work they do and they way they do it, which may be just as important as the price for some clients.
Your investment in your home is important, and achieving the best result for the best price is certainly a worthy goal of any renovation project. But true project costs include things like how long the project takes and your rental costs, what the fees for change orders are, how materials and labor are billed, and whether you are personally compatible – items which may not show up on a bid. Without asking for qualifications, you are only getting part of the picture, and it may not ultimately be the part of the picture that determines your ultimate satisfaction with the project.
