Autograph Home Remodeling Contract Made Easy

Autograph home remodeling contract

hey what's going on my friend this is Matthew Hamill with modern kitchen pros and in today's video we're going to discuss finding the right kitchen remodeling contractor for your renovation project now for most people you're going to be looking for a general contractor and this is something that we do on a weekly basis we're currently expanding our national network here in the US so we're constantly looking for amazing contractors that will help us service our clients so these are some of the questions that we run through we do have a big questionnaire that we go through that isn't relevant to this video for you as a homeowner but these are the questions that we would ask if we were looking for somebody for our own home projects now the first thing and probably the most important is finding out if your contractor is licensed bonded and insured now I live in California and we have some of the strictest laws in the country there are some states are a little bit more relaxed a perfect example is out in Texas where you're really only required to have basic general liability insurance there are no license requirements for somebody doing a kitchen remodel there are some specialty trades out there that require it but for the most part a GC out here in California can actually operate in Texas without a license so but make sure no matter where you're hiring them make sure they have all of the proper documentation needed to actually be legally performing business in that area or in that state now the second thing you want to look at is work history right you want to take a look at their client gallery see if they have before-and-after photos and you really want to analyze the quality of workmanship that the contractor you're speaking with is actually going to be putting into your project you're gonna be paying a lot of money right average kitchen remodel runs anywhere from twenty-five to fifty thousand dollars it is a good chunk of change that you're gonna be spending with this guy and you want to make sure that the quality is there so look for a client gallery on a website before and after photos before and after videos there's actually something that we do and you just want to really make sure that the workmanship and the craftsmanship is there and that if you have a vision for your kitchen that you can actually see them pulling it off based upon previous work now the third thing you want to do is look at testimonials and reviews right video testimonials are great and they give you kind of a one-on-one experience with the homeowner and it really weeds out some of the fake reviews and things that go on out there the other thing is you can check Yelp and you can check house those are really great resources for contractors collecting reviews and it's it'll give you a good idea of who you're about to hire now a side note on the review thing a lot of the reviews of five-star reviews sometimes they can be fake some of the one-star reviews can be faked we actually had our first one-star review ever and it was because we refused to do business with this client this client didn't have the budget for what she wanted and we simply told her hey there's nothing we can do we're sorry but there's nothing we can do well she proceeded to report us to the BBB she wrote us a one-star on how sort of someone's thrown Yelp it was just absolutely crazy so when you're reading these reviews and you're looking at that star rating go through and look at you know who's reviewing what they're writing do they write a lot of reviews on Yelp you know for other different companies look at their style of writing for reviews things like that the one-star review that we got she actually started off all of her review chef like 11 or views or something like that most of them are one-star reviews and she started them all off with the same exact sentence this company is horrible buyer beware and I'm like really lady so it's just take it with a grain of salt but you know a real review from a fake one or from just somebody who's just mad for no reason and there's trust me there's plenty of people out there like that we're in an industry that is very tough very emotional right and people do get upset and contractors are gonna do whatever they possibly can to fix things to make things right but sometimes homeowners are just unrealistic and unreasonable and you don't want to be that home on a right especially if you're trying to nickel and dime your contractor which that's where a lot of problems happen you start nickel and diming and contractors are like hey I have to charge you from my time you don't work for free why should I so that's where a lot of conflict comes from so just read those reviews with all of that in mind the next question you want to ask is how busy are you you want to ask that for two reasons one you're looking to schedule things out for your own project but the other thing is you want to look and see how far booked out the contractor is because that's kind of a sign of a quality contractor now some guys have multiple teams and can kick out you know three for renovations every two weeks right they can just go go-go-go-go and they're not booked out six months those guys are great find out what their operations are like right ask how busy they are what's their lead time my husband they can start things like that and just know that if they say yeah we can start in two weeks you know and they have multiple teams that's usually not a problem those are contractors that are looking to build big businesses right but if they say here we can start tomorrow for me it's kind of a red flag this is something that I would use your judgment on based upon the other questions that you've asked but use your judgment on it and there's been times where we've said hey we can't start tomorrow if you have all your materials at your house if your contractor bailed on you right you've got all your materials you've got your planes you get everything in line email everything over to me let me review it I'm not just gonna say yes we need to make sure that we can pull it off and sometimes it does happen right but it's not a a sign that this guy doesn't have work that he's jumping on the first thing that comes in you kind of got to play that one and use your own discernment with that the other thing is if somebody's booked out for six months or a year they're probably a really really really really good contractor but they probably don't have the team's in place to facilitate any more business than what they're currently working with so for you that's kind of unfortunate it's a good sign right if you want to wait but if you're an investor or you're you know you need a new kitchen now you just had water damage or you know what I hate my kitchen I'm tired of looking at that I need to pull the trigger in the next month it's probably not gonna be the guy for you but it does show that hey these guys are quality so it just kind of depends on what you want to do how fast you want to move and you know the answers to the previous questions before you just kind of gauge it and feel it out and make a judgment call that way and the final thing is pricing now I've been taught from a very young age that free costs more and she is just as expensive you don't want the cheapest contractor if you can't afford what a quality contractor is going to do for you wait please wait because I'd say nine times out of ten if you go with the cheaper sky you're gonna end up regretting it number one number two you're gonna have much more headache than you would hiring the the more expensive guy number three you run the risk of having somebody come in and doing crappy work and then having to hire the more expensive guy to actually come back out undo and then redo and you're in this project you're completely upside-down you're in it thousands of dollars and it's just the risk that I highly wouldn't recommend running right if it was my house I I look at things based based upon value right like if you're gonna remodel my kitchen and you're telling me it's gonna cost me ten thousand dollars and I have a 20 by 10 kitchen I know you're out of your mind I'm not gonna jump at that price because I know it's garbage right or if a contractor would come to me and say hey mr. Hammil I know you have a 20 by 10 kitchen you know we've gone through the plans all the numbers things like that you're looking at a thirty to forty five thousand dollar kitchen okay perfect for me that makes more sense right because I'm gauging it based upon like the linear foot and the quality of the materials that I'm going with and you can gauge that by if I have a twenty by ten that gives me 30 linear feet and I like to gauge my projects at about $1,000 to $1,500 per linear foot so about five thirty linear feet I'm looking at $30,000 kitchen and that's for a pretty good quality that's not the Chinese cabinets that's not prefab countertops these are good semi custom or even prefab cabinets that are built with 3/4 inch plywood or even MDF sometimes but you're gonna get a higher quality cabinet a higher quality countertop higher quality appliances things like that and that's for the full remodel right so but just I say all of that to say and I've kind of touched on pricing in another video but I say all of that to say do not go with the cheapest guy just because he's the cheapest because the moment you start shopping price over value you're gonna end up with a kitchen that you absolutely regret and for me that's just my honest opinion I've seen it happen multiple times you know we do about 200 to 250 kitchen remodels a year and that is probably forty percent of our business is they hire the cheap guy and then they came to us to fix it and it costs them double of what it would have cost if they were to hire this in the beginning so it's just it's based on personal experience I'm not you know just shooting opinions out there we see it every single day right so I hope you got some value from this video if you have questions please leave them in the comment section below this video and if you're looking for more information on starting your own kitchen remodel simply click the link below this video and we'd be more than happy to help again this is Matthew Hamel with modern kitchen pros and I hope you have a phenomenal day