All Forum Posts by: Roarke Van Brunt

I have worked with Canby X.  They really know their AHJ's well, they stay very competitive in area they condiser theirs and do good work.  I found them good to work with as well.

Nice job Jay!  The company I work for finished up a comercial project not to far away and I took the time to drive thorugh the neighborhood, and it looks fantastic!  Who did you guys work with on the excvataion/utilites for the site work if you don't mind me asking?

@Bri Sawyer, sorry you hare having this difficutly with your contractor.  Here are my thoughts as a PM for a General Contractor/Developer.

First - all items must have backup supporting the claim of increased prices.  Have them provide the quotes for the supplies when the bid the job or were contracted to the job. Ask for original invoices/quotes vs current invoices.  Based on what you typed I am assuming the excalation is only for materials, make sure thats all this is for.  I don't know how the language reads in your contract but if it doesn't allow for markup, pay only the actual costs of the increased material costs, no subcontractor markup unless otherwise agreed upon. Watch out for switches on the "currrent invoices" write two party checks to suppliers if needed, get your lien waivers, and ask for proof they have paid the invoice.   

Second - Did you go through a submittal process? We only allow escalations a week or so after submittal approval, if the subcontractor waits three months to secure their order from there that is their risk. I also make sure all my contract escalations allow for savings if there are any.  Makes folks less likely to send me random escalations, since I have the ability to request backup for ALL project materials, not just the one they want to escalate.

Third - I am sure your contract allows you to Audit the project, do so at the end. The fact that the escalation was $111k and then $87k when you asked for invoices is nuts.  Get all the paperwork for your review, try to do this as part of reconcillation and retention release since they will need to send a final bill for retention when they are complete. If they send you excalation notices from the supplier that are from three months ago, you should contest that they did not provide them to you in a timely manner. Most contracts have a time to notify in days from when a cost impart was realized by your contractor, if they are outside this window then you have bargaining power also. 

Overall - I generally expect escalation timing to make sense.  When they order the item is when they know the material cost difference not after they installed. Giving you 7 days to write a check witout proper backup is not acceptable. Lean on the contract language, respond with "not approved", don't ghost them, until they provide what you need. I would just keep asking for backup from costs at time of contract, to costs at time of purchase. If there is a difference that is the only number you should discuss, pay what you should when something is adequately backed up.

@Chris WilburnI haven't worked with any of them directly.  I work for a commerical/industrial developer/GC, very different market form the homebuilder/203k remodeler.  203K contractors are hard to find so I through out the few I knew to help in the search.

I would reach out to your lender you are working with on the 203k loan.  They probably have a better feel for who is easiest to work with based on feedback from their clients.  If you are working with a designer/Architect they might have some thoughts.  The last option is to call the 203k contractor directly and ask for references.  Wish I could be more help.

Welcome Tim,

For Real Estate Agent @Kelly Asmus I can refer.
For Lender @Grant Schroeder at Academy Mortgage I can refer.

Kurt Lane with Chroma Property Management has a good reputation, I haven't worked with them though so this is just a word of mouth reference maybe worth investigating. And I am not sure what you are looking to have managed.

In response to the paint.  This is more of a handyman comment/tip for the do it yourself landlords. 

No matching is ever going to be perfect, period.  But the matching ideas other presented here are pretty good for samples. The one thing I noticed in the pictures for paint touchups is it doesn't apprear that folks are feathering in their touchups. Feathering will do a lot to blend your matched paint in to the rest of the wall so you don't have these stark lines where the new paint meets the old.  A quick visit to youtube will show you how to do it if you are doing touchups yourself.

Also sometimes more is better than less in painting and drywall patching, if you have a cluster of small patches, just paint or patch one larger seciton that contains it all so that you are feathering/blending at top and bottom, but the middle where folks eyes naturally land is one large similar landscape.  They are less likely to notice the inconsistencies, as they don't stand out so much. 

I wouldn't expect my painter to putty every nail hole in your siding unless you spoke to that with them specifically.  

On a new build I would have had that under the siding installer when they caulked all the joints, if at all. Some siding products specifically tell you not to caulk for various reasons (usually a pre-finished product)  Read the fine print on your siding install instructions. 

I wold hold your painter to the contract.  Don't pay until acceptable. You can also help yourself by getting a rep on your side.  If you are using a Rhodda, Sherwin Williams, Benjamin Moore, etc, you can usually get a hold of an area sales rep.  Tell them you had a painter use their product and you don't think they applied it correctly. See if they will swing by and take a look, if you position it as a potential warranty issue they might be willing to come out.   If you can get them to call out the install/application as bad (not following manufacturers instructions) it really puts pressure on the painter when the manufacturer of the paint is on your side. 

@Kyle Robarts if you contracted the GC for the whole job then yes it is their responsibility, check your contract that it says so. That being said, if YOU contracted a sub outside of the scope the GC is responsible for, the answer is that you are fully responsible for dealing with that sub and their mess.  Don't expect the GC to work for free when you didn't give them that scope.

Make sure you have contract language on daily cleaning, key words to use are "daily basis", "broom cleaning or equivalent" and "removal from worksite"  Make it apply to (rubbish, waste materials, tools, construction equipment, machinery, and surplus materials), and include a statement of back charge of cost plus 10% if you have to perform the cleaning. 

Even then that only really works on a sub who's scope is big enough to warrant it.  Expect to do most if not all of the cleaning on a house build or any commercial project that is less that one million dollars in my experience.  Once scopes start getting larger as projects increase in size each contractor is making too much mess for them to expect someone else do deal with it, cleanliness at that point actually makes them more efficient so its in their self interest usually, and basic tidying/cleanup should be expected. I tend to get annoyed at any sub with a scope over $150k that leaves junk everywhere. Usually the economics help at the larger scale, and things come back to bite too. If I keep having to pay cleaners for you, then you show up one day playing lawyer to get a change order approved. Watch how fast I charge you back for all the cleaning.

I have to wonder @Jay Hinrichs how much of those Portland buyers moving to Canby is completely natural, and really not an indicator of anything other than "hey nice house, lets live there".  There is just is a lack of supply everywhere in the area for homebuyers.  I mean, I have been looking lately, have had some bad luck on buying a few duplexes I went after with the spouse. No big deal, will keep at it. But we also have kept our eye out for a single family we see an opportunity with.  Our household has more the twice the average household income of the area according to the US Census, we have no debt, and credit scores above 760.  Housing here IS expensive feeling. I have looked in Canby, because frankly, its a suburb at this point. Anywhere you can live and drive into downtown inside an hour is fair game for a "Portland" home in my opinion.  

Just my two cents as the average Joe who lives here and is actively trying to get their first place.

@Kenneth C.  Glad you have a path forward for usage, that made me worried at a glance.  Happy to hear you can get a variance.  For costs on a wood frame building I wouldn't go with anything less than $225/sqft right now, for estimating, and that is a no thrills building.  But regional differences can play a large factor in that, I am in Portland and it's not the cheapest market to build in. 

I would suggest if you have a plan (permit ready), or even a solid test fit.  Do a takeoff and build a budget with something inexpensive like a Saylor's manual (linked below) and whatever number you come up with, even if you have markups, add 20% at the bottom line as an Estimating Contingency.  That's just an example if it would help.  You should be able to push out a reasonable budget pretty quick, just give yourself some margin to work with.  The cost isn't real until you have a contract signed up on the dotted line anyway.  

http://www.saylor.com/new-prod...