Home improvements contractor (real estate, apartment, lease)

[NCtoNJ]

Hello,

We are considering buying a house in Northern Jersey that needs a lot of work done - entire flooring, painting and other minor things. Does any body know of a good reliable contractor? I believe Home Depot or Sears would be more expensive.

Thank you in advance!

[Rapture]

What town? I know someone really good and reliable but what area is the house?

[NCtoNJ]

nutley, NJ

[BobKovacs]

I've got a good friend who may be interested in talking to you- I'll PN you his info. And for God's sake, don't go to HD, Lowes or Sears to get any work done- you'll pay more for the work, and get the work done by subcontractors who are getting paid a fraction of what you're paying for the work. There are more horror stories about work done by those clowns than you'd care to imagine.

Bob

[Rapture]

Sorry my person is much further west.

[Ellwood]

We had an awful experience with subcontractor from Lowe's who laid a laminate floor which cost us 3K, came back three or four times and the floor still is not right. Check with Better Business Bureau and get references.

[NCtoNJ]

Thanks for the responses so far. We are new in the area and have never dealt with any contractor before. I have heard some horror stories about unreliable and poor quality work. We also have a time limit since our apartment lease will be getting over soon.

We will be meeting a contractor soon to get an estimate. What questions should be ask him? Is there anything that should raise a flag? How accurate or detailed should the estimate be?

We are basically looking for painting and hardwood for the whole house, and kitchen remodeling.

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by NCtoNJ

Thanks for the responses so far. We are new in the area and have never dealt with any contractor before. I have heard some horror stories about unreliable and poor quality work. We also have a time limit since our apartment lease will be getting over soon.

We will be meeting a contractor soon to get an estimate. What questions should be ask him? Is there anything that should raise a flag? How accurate or detailed should the estimate be?

We are basically looking for painting and hardwood for the whole house, and kitchen remodeling.

You want to make sure he's licensed and insured- NJ recently started licensing HI contractors, and requiring them to carry liability insurance. Ask for references of similar projects, and for big jobs, ask to visit a job that's in progress to see how neat the site is and check on the quality of the work.

As far as "how accurate or detailed should the estimate be?", that depends on what you give them to work with. If all you can say is "we're thinking about repainting 3 or 4 rooms, maybe doing something with the floors, and getting a really nice new kitchen", you can expect a response of "well, the painting may run you 'x' to 'y', the floors could be from 'a' to 'b', and the kitchen might be 'p' to 'q' ". If, on the other hand, you know exactly what you want, you should be able to get hard pricing on the painting and flooring.

For the kitchen, expect to pay a design/consulting fee for a detailed/accurate proposal. Any decent contractor is busy right now, and isn't going to spend 5, 10, 20 hours pricing up your $50,000 dream kitchen with 40 different options, only to find out that you wanted to spend $10k, for free. I can tell you that the guy I PM'd you about will give you the first meeting at no charge, but beyond that, you'll be paying for his time.

Let me know if you need anymore info.

Bob

[bay]

you also can ask your real estate agent for reference. And remember to write everything they promised including the target completion date in your contract. We hired the contractor, but end up doing more by ourselves. My husband sand and paint part of the wall with them and monitor them every day after they kept delaying our work and did not do the work very detail.

[Joey111]

Used Mattcon and 'con' was accurate. Got windows and siding. Also thrown in no extra charge was ruined woodwork throughout my house, front porch lights removed and replaced with outlet covered up with an aluminum column. They also put up some siding on a place I did not want it and it was ugly to boot!