I am having a string of bad luck bidding jobs. I get called to bid on a fair amount of work and it seems lately that I am just being used to "shop" a price. The GC is normal really nice to me and always answers the phone when I call or returns my calls promptly while I am bidding on the job. Then all the sudden I send my price in on bid day and bam the guy never answers my calls or returned a call in 3 days now. Is this normal? This has happen two or three times to me in the last month. I am going in on minimum markup just to keep guys going I find it hard to believe that I wasnt even close enough for a call back or anything.
Your not the only one it happens to. A friend of ours is bidding on a big job thats 5.5 hours away from home just trying to find something to do.
it's pathetic how prices have dropped so quikly. all the bidding and never getting anything sure takes the fun out of it. then u think i'll low ball this one to get moving and some...... bag is in there for half price of less. thinks will turn around sooner or later
Don't feel bad, the company I work for has routinely in the past bid against 5 or 6 companies for jobs, now we bid against 20 to 25. My opinion is the city governments we work for are making out like bandits with the low bids we are seeing. I guess everybody is low bidding just to have work.
One of our competitors had to drop his price $250,000 on a nursing home project to get the job. It was either that, or lay everyone off.
xcavate, this is the way it has been for me too the last 6 months or so.:Banghead Wouldn't you just want a courtesy call back saying you were either way high, in the middle or not low enough? The problem that I have run into is the owner's financing. It used to be procure site, get financing, bid job, start construction. Now what I am seeing is procure site, bid job, get financing, start construction. I do know that the banks are only loaning on "actual cost" not "appraised value". With the banks requiring more $$$ down, this puts the pressure on the owners to get the construction costs down. It's a vicious cycle. I bid a pre-school site package in August. Got a call in Oct. that I was awarded the job and we are still waiting on owner financing to start. I have bid so many jobs both public and private the last 6 months or so that I feel personally responsible for deforestation.
I agree. I called for a set of plans the other day and the nice lady said, "we just ran out so give us a day to get more made" they started with 25 sets!
I was talking to a friend who runs an engineering and survey company. They do layout but also they do property surveys, and things like that requiring a licensed surveyor. He was saying the same thing, people call him just to shop a price. He gives a number they call him back and say "but so and so will do it for x dollars."
russian roulette? To calm you USA guys down, we have the same situation here in Finland, and i think it's the whole europe! :beatsme I have got a couple interior demolitions for a couple of months, we got them just because the GC doesn't belive that our competition could make the demolition in the time shedule. that kind of jobs are the only ones that i can make money on these days, and they are really stressfull. our competition goes as low as 50% on our prices, in other words, they pay for a hobby ointhead CM1995 We have a big shopping centre interior demolition job that i'm waiting to beging, but the problem is that the customer can't get a financing. at this point they will be a forest fire among the contractors, those who are not ready for it will disapere. and in some time thins will start rolling again, and probably will rise sky high again. The picture is from my kitchen, i have been calculating projects at home lately, so i can have more time with my 7 months old son The papers are all different projects that is on bidding circle... a lot of unnecesary work, but without doing it we would be selling equipment by now.
We are in the same boat here in the northwest. I spent weeks bidding a wetland project only to be beat out by my rock supplier. Ya, time is tough but when they move there pit equipment to go do a wetland project that crosses the line. It is hard to compete with your supplier. I am bidding a pipe and siteprep job and I have never seen the amount of out of state bidders that I have on this one. Some from the eastcoast. This is not a big job either mabey 400 to 500 grand. Times are tough and I sure am feeling it. I feel bad for all the familys that are effected by the layoffs and company closures. A buddy of mine called to try and sell his equipment off. He layed off 20 guys. Hope you get those bids, my desk is almost empty.
sandsnowt it u are a stud, cannot pu.t in in better wordsow a boy in trout crk. an d have not heard from in 6 months. bt i am a dp st. i n
Hhhhuuh?:idontgetit
Guess im not the only one. I used to work for a company that had a paving division, but did not own their own asphalt plant nor did they own their own materials pit. They learned quickly that their supplier could put down pavement for the price we were buying it. That got them out of the paving business in no time. Ive never heard of a supply company going after site work. To be honest, I dont think I could buy another pebble from them. I dont care if I have to truck something from farther away.
Sometimes you just have to stay on people like a dirty shirt. I always call people back on bids. Talk to them long enough and you can get a general idea of how much cheaper the other guys are , then re-adjust your pricing if possible. One job recently to de silt a swm pond that we bidded on , we priced at $180k which is a decent amount cheaper then we would normally do it for , got lowballed by a no name contractor at $60k. It's rediculous . Can't be upset though beacause like the past few jobs we will get called in to clean up his mess.
this scenario is what pees me off...i gave the guy a quote/bid/proposal...whatever you want to call it in good faith....as did the other bidders...next thing you know, you have other bidders calling in and asking where they have to be to get the job. why waste your effort throwing a number at it?
you wouldnt want to know if you were 5k to expensive on a 500k job? The developers and engineers that we work with will call us and let us know if we are off by a small margin just beacause they know we will get the job done way faster and do a much beter job then 98% of our competition. Theres a difference between this and lowballing. A very very good portion of the jobs we dont win right away we get called in a few weeks after to clean up the other guys mess.
no, because in my opinion....you've put your proposal up for auction. what that general is doing to you is....he's driving down the street looking for a hooker, he doesn't like your price, so he goes on down the street and finds one who will at his price. once he finds out that hooker can't get him off...he'll be back at your cornerr, and remember the grief the cheap one gave him.
i'll take this a step further, were i to know that this engineer/developer had a history of shopping my bid, i'd ask him what time he was opening proposals, insist i'm present, and let me know at that time were i low bid, got the job...if he refuses, i wouldn't waste my time pricing the job for another contractor.
To bad i have to laugh like a maniac to this comparison but it is damn true!! this is exactly what happens, some ceap one who has no proud for his job leaves it like a bomb, and the expensive and proud guys does the finnish:beatsme and who is the winner? *the answer is* tattadaa! SURPRICE, the general contractor!!! because usually they get the cheap ones to do it really cheap, and the ones fixing it does it on a regular or discount hourly rate to show their "tallent". so the difference between the low bid and the high bid is bigger than the bill for the repairs! thrust me, this is how it goes 95% of the time:Banghead i usually only send my boys to fix things if we really don't have anything else to do! and thats quite rare. one thing that i do accept is when the GC calls and asks "how can this price be this high, can you adjust?" then you know that there is probably some cheaper bid, but they would like to do buisness with you. then you just have to take look at the calculator again and see if there is something to adjust or make in an else way, but you don't go to this auction affair. usually these cheap guys have know idea of where to stop, in other words, when they start to pay for the job!
The last job I bid I went it at cost and no markup on my subs just because I knew the GC had a prefered site guy and knew he would have to match my price. The GC was shopping numbers to get the cheapest price and then goes back to the prefered guy and says can you do it for this. So now that poor b*****d has to do it at cost. It happens to me on the flip side to because I have GC's I do alot of work for that will say I have a bid for this can you do it for that. Normally if its way cheaper I let the other guy do the work but if its within 3-4% Ill go ahead and drop my price to get the job. If I wanted to lose money I can stay home and do it without working so hard. There needs to be bid shopping rules in the private sector.
i dunno....when ii have a GC that #1, tells me i'm high, and wonder if i want to adjust my price...or #2....literally shows me the other proposals and asks if i'll meet, or beat them....they're shopping me, whether it's 3-4%, or .000005 %. the rules you refer to, are already in place, they're called business ethics. quickest way to stop this from happening, is refuse to participate in this activity.
I am in the masonry business for 33 years and do commercial work. When you bid a job correctly the only thing adjustable is your profit. Remember on a 100,000 dollar job 5,000 is 5% of the job and it may be 20% of your profit. No sense working for nothing and burning up your equipment. Keeping good records on productions makes you a good estimator who can take jobs close but at a profit. I can out produce the competition and estimate the cost really close but that will not get me a job. It is easier to compete against smart competition. Idiots who don't know their true cost and only may know it when they are belly up at the earliest but may be never learn. When they tell me X contractor is at this price I tell them give his name I have some work to subcontract to him.:roll Keep trying to expand your client base for new bids but check them out carefully. Working for someone who doesn't pay is never a profit or good job. Keep on plugging!:drinkup
I am ask if I want to see the others bid at times. I tell them know he is not my esinator and I have to do the job. If I was price matching I need not to bid any more I'll save time and work more and let them bid my jobs. ointhead
They all shop but they know I am a no headache masonry contractor so it may get me a few bucks more or a second look. Not much more in this market:duh