Brandon Nelson
Call
FAX
Categories
- Neighborhoods
- Structures I Love
- NW Street Views
- Seller Info
- Buyer Info
- Market Info
- NW Way of Life
- NW 'Words' of Life
- Home Projects & Upkeep
- Races & Events
- Other Stuff
Neighborhoods
Bellingham Weather
How to Find Skilled Trades on Craigslist
I take a lot of pride as a Realtor in helping my clients arrange for work on their homes, whether they’re buying or getting ready to sell. And after 8 years in construction then 3 ½ years as a state licensed home inspector, I’m fluent in the language of the trades.
In this time of very low construction activity, there is a great opportunity to get those projects done around the house at VERY reasonable prices. And www.Craigslist.com – the same site you used to sell that dusty old chest of drawers in 10 minutes flat – is the key.
See, the trades have slowed wayyyy down since new construction starts are almost non-existent right now. Most of those sub-contractors who tooled up during the last five years of boom-time are sitting around hoping that phone will ring with some work. I’ve been there myself, and what was once an attitude of, “Sorry, ma’am, I don’t start my truck for less than $45 an hour,” became a very enthusiastic, “YES MA’AM, I will absolutely do that job for $25 an hour!!!” It’s simple supply and demand.
So how do you find these “other” tradesmen and women? Typically, not in the Yellow Pages. At least not the ones with the biggest ads.
In the last few months when I’ve called to get roof replacement bids, siding replacement, or rain gutter installation, I’ve been FAXed over what I consider to be full-retail, boom-time bids. Two examples are when one of my clients required complete siding replacement before his sale would close. We got bids extending up and over $13,000 for the job. And on our own rental house in Sudden Valley, which has a new roof and fascia, and needed continuous aluminum gutters installed. Yellow Pages contractors bid that job at $1100 give or take a fifty. Yikes!
So in both cases I put an ad up on the job board on Bellingham Craigslist.com. I included the detailed specs of the jobs, basic dimensions and material types we wanted. I thought we’d let the builders come to us, and see who was ready to negotiate.
Before the end of Day 1, the phone started ringing. And it rang, and rang. Off the hook, actually. It took a very moderate level of filtering to make sure I was talking to fully tooled-up, licensed, reputable tradesmen who knew what they were doing, and could point me to a number of different jobs to look at or former clients to call. The net effect was that we suddenly had our pick of different options, and the prices were back down to earth.
In the end, we got a siding contractor who’d done hundreds of houses with the same material we wanted, and the job ended up costing around $6000 — that’s $7000.00 LESS THAN the bids we’d gotten through the Yellow Pages.
For the rain gutters, I was looking at bids of about $1100 and 4 weeks waiting time. I ended up getting the exact continuous aluminum gutters and downspouts I wanted, installed less than 72 hours after I posted the ad, for $500 flat.
So next time you have a project you want to outsource, put down the Yellow Pages, and log on to www.Craigslist.com! Include as much about the job as you can, and if you have a budget already that you know is competitive, put it in there. If you don’t dictate the terms, you know who will.
