Posted by Jeffery (La) on July 27, 2003 at 16:55:58:
If you’re only rehabbing homes in need of cosmetic work and light utility repair, you might want to consider using an experienced handyman. It will usually cost you less than a general contractor. You will need to have a “Scope of Work” to include into a contract with your handyman or GC, whichever you choose to use. In the Scope, you will indicate what work is to be done. When I bid on a job as a contractor, the homeowner tells me what they want done, and it’s included in my bid line for line. Everything else is excluded. If you hire a handyman and some of the work is out of his scope, you can have him bid that part of the work out for you. The customary charge for that would be about 5 - 10% over the sub contractor’s invoice. Usually when you hire a general contractor, they will get bids from all of the subs and then increase that price by 10 - 15% (on top of their customary charges for managing the job) for their bid to you. With general contractors, they will have a scope of work to follow as well. Long story short, with a handyman it will cost you less as long as you CHECK REFERENCES. I’m not flaming GC’s, everyone’s got their place in the construction market. Hope this info helps.
Happy building
Jeffery (La)