All Forum Posts by: Matt A.

 Hi Wilson, a referral to the private construction inspector you mentioned would be great. Please PM me.

Hey John. That makes sense regarding why there are so few private construction inspectors, I wish there were more however. Some of the reasons would be getting their neutral opinions on the following during any construction project:

-If a change order the GC requests is truly necessary.
-Verify the GC has in fact filed the right permits.
-Check for subtle issues and defects city inspectors might not check for.
-And more.

Overall, I like the idea of "trust, buy verify" in that one should trust the GC they choose to work with, but still have a way of verify everything the GC is doing is above board. Hopefully the industry will have more private construction inspectors in the future. I'd do more construction projects if more private construction inspectors existed.

Its typical for real estate investors to hire a private home/building inspectors to inspect a real estate property before they buy it. There are many licensed inspectors you can hire to do this. 

However, why are there barely any private inspectors who can be hired to inspect construction/remodeling projects being done on properties? 
I assumed having such inspections done during construction/remodeling projects was standard. I'm amazed to find out it is rarely done.  

Or perhaps there is a world of inspectors who do this and I just don't know where to look?
I''ve only heard of ones existing who work on large constructions projects, not small single family home investment properties.

Why is it that so many General Contractors in the California Bay Area drive vehicles that don't display their contractor license number or business name? Aren't they required by law to display these items on their vehicles? I think "California Business and Professions code 7029.6" is the name of the law that requires them to display this?

I ask because I've interviewed a number of general contractors over the years for my various real estate projects and am shocked at how the vast majority showed up to the job site to give an estimate in a vehicle that did not display their contractor license number or business name.

Aside from this one issue, they'd often have great portfolios, long list of successful permits I could verify they pulled, great references, no complaints on their license, and had been licensed for over a decade. It made me wonder why they would not follow code 7029.6. Perhaps there is a reason I'm not aware of?

I'm deciding between a couple different licensed General Contractors to hire to remodel an investment property in Oakland, CA.

Some of their buildzoom.com profiles show no record of them having ever filed permits.

Other General Contractor's buildzoom.com profiles show records of them filing/pulling a bunch of permits, but not in all the categories my project entails (especially HVAC and Electric).

Is it typical for General Contractors to have their subcontractors file/pull permits instead of pulling/filling the permits themselves? Perhaps this is why I'm seeing these results on buildzoom.com?

I have a some relatively small remodeling jobs to do on multiple different properties in Oakland, CA. I’m not sure if they even count as a “remodeling” since they are each relatively small. Any recs toward an architect who does small projects like this?

The only ones I’ve found seem to only focus on large scale remodels and/or creating new homes/buildings from scratch.

Thanks Osazee. Do you have any recommendations toward specific construction consultants I can hire to cross check the construction work on my single unit Oakland condo at various stages of the project? I tried doing an online search for one before I started this thread, but could not find one that works on small projects such as a single unit oakland condo. Please feel free to post the websites or contact info of any you recommend here, or private message them to me.

I’m about to spend around $20k-$50k hiring a general contractor to do some remodeling work on a condo in Oakland.

How do you recommend I cross check their work? I ask because even if it looks good to me visually, I don’t have the experience to fully check it for things like quality, completeness, or code compliance; nor do I know how to verify they successfully filed the correct permits.

For instance, do I hire some sort of Construction Consultant to cross check it? Any suggestions toward ones if so?

I spoke with a General Contractor I hope to hire who is licensed in California. Is there some sort of website I can use to look up exactly how many permits they have filed in California? The website buildzoom.com shows around 15 permits they filed. However, this amount seems inaccurately low because they have been licensed for over 20 years. I figure they must have filed more than 15 permits in their 20+ year career?

What is the Zillow of Multi-Family homes?
I'm interested in buying a 2-4 unit Multi-Family home in Atlanta, Georgia (and other parts of the country). Which websites show the most Multi-Family homes for sale?
I find Zillow and Redfin show pretty much all single family homes that are publicly listed for sale. Are there similar websites that show pretty much all Multi-Family homes that are publicly listed for sale?