Race to the bottom

I know that many consumers complain about the high prices of construction/remodeling cost in the United States. Not everyone is aware of the high cost of labor, and materials that is involved in any construction project. Customers equate high prices with high profits. The reality is quite the opposite.
Consumers are indiscriminately hiring rogue or sometimes illegal contractors, handymen and other fly by night operations for construction services. In most cases, these unqualified operations are desperate for money, and accept projects at cost or below cost prices. Most of the time, they have no intentions to finish the projects they start, and they hunt for more and more projects to keep them afloat. Consumers end up getting hurt both financially and emotionally and they simply loose their trust in all contractors.
A side effect of this is the downward pressure on prices that legitimate and legal contractors need to charge for construction/remodeling projects in order to provide high quality services. Legitimate contractors have to incur many costs such as bonds, insurance, legal wages, taxes, etc. All of this cost must be recouped from projects over a year's duration in order to continue to operate a quality enterprise. When the prices are pushed down by illegal competition, many contractors will either go out of business or they will end up providing less than perfect services. The cost has to be accounted for and unfortunately it is the consumers who will end up suffering from lowered service quality.

What do I mean from lowered service quality?

• It could be in the form of shorter warranties,
• lower quality of workmanship resulting from hurried project completions,
• unresponsiveness to smaller projects, etc.

What can the consumers do to avoid this from happening to them?

• Pay a fair price for the projects.
• Don't compare prices from illegal operations to legitimate contractors.
• Do your homework and set your own expectations right based on industry prices.
• Don't abuse good contractors and frustrate them out of business.
  
• Keep in mind we all need good contractors to survive in our economy and we cannot outsource contractor work in construction.

Good luck.

Murat Aksu
A1A Team
(703) 728-8836