General REI questions

[Andrew Lawrence]

As the description states, I have a list of questions for BP members as I browsed the internet and BP forums for some of these, and others for opinions of others who have gone through these scenarios. 

1. When giving out draws to contractors (30/30/30/10), how do you determine, based on pictures what percentage of the work is actually complete? As in, the contractor has started his first 1/3 of work, calls/texts you and says he's ready for another draw, sends you pictures of completed work. Coming from someone with minimal construction knowledge or experience, how do you gauge that a project is a certain percentage complete? Ex. I can see the granite countertops are done, but based on the whole project, what percentage does that equate to?

2. I have heard recommendations for "Firing fast" when you recognize a contractor isnt quite working out. How do you have the talk to let them go? Especially if they are in the middle of a project and still have some left from a partial draw?

3. I have heard suggestions to pay a contractor a bonus for completing work early and penalizing for late work. How do you know that they don't abuse the trust between the two of you with this system? Example: they give you a bid and say it should take 4 weeks to complete a job, you get it in writing and promise to pay a 5k bonus if they complete the job in 3 weeks. They follow through. In the second job, they quote 5 weeks, knowing that you're likely to pay another nice bonus for finishing early even though they know they could really complete it in 4 and once again, complete the job in 4 weeks and get the bonus for finishing "early". 

4. How do you determine if a property manager is being forthright and honest? What if they say there's a vacant unit but they secretly rented it out and are pocketing the money from the "empty" rental unit? Best ways to confirm that this isnt happening without having to visit the investment constantly? (Assuming an out of state MFH property) Such as checking utility meters on a separate unit (assuming all units are individually metered)

5. When analysing a real estate market, aside from job & population growth which seem arguably the most important factors, how important is looking at a city's number of new commercial and multifamily construction in a given area (construction/community growth?) and how do you gauge this? I have seen ideas such as looking at the number of permits issued at a city/county permitting office but even they don't seem to have all of the info together to show the bigger picture of how a city is doing in terms of investment activity, best ways to approach this?

Any insights would be greatly appreciated!