By Linda Schmid
If you are like many builder/contractors, one of the things you do not look forward to is putting together a bid for a customer who doesn’t know much about barndominiums and what they cost. Yet he or she has decided this is what they want, and while they are pouring out their heart’s desire into their wish list, everything from floor to ceiling windows and Carrera marble countertops to clawfoot tubs, you are thinking that not only is this going to take a while to price out, it’s likely a waste of time. The customer will probably not move forward with it when they see the numbers. Sound familiar?
What About an Estimator?
Mike Rinks, a builder of 30 years and co-owner of Symun Systems, says he can help. The basic Construction Maestro design and estimating software allows the user to create a custom pole barn or garage to their specifications and building style. It generates CAD drawings of the building shell, including posts, girts, purlins, windows, doors, and wall and roof sheeting layouts. It generates a materials list along with several other reports. However, the basic package does not include interior walls, or any functionality for HVAC, plumbing, or electrical.
Putting together a reasonably priced basic bid, if working on a small, simple ranch style barndo, can be done in 10 minutes according to Rinks. However, a turnkey cost breakdown of an entire project from start to finish is a different story. There are many factors to consider. If a customer already has a pretty good idea of what they want, a building design of the structure can be created in a day or two with the help of an additional software for advanced users called the Maestro Plotter™ module.
However, what slows down the turnkey bidding process according to Rinks, is that you are at the mercy of your subcontractors. Estimates are needed for the excavation of the site, a plumber, an HVAC contractor, an electrician, and any other subcontractors needed to complete the job. Other obstacles include soil testing, water tap fees or well drilling costs, building permit fees, perc test results or sewer tap fees, if applicable, the positioning of the barndo on the property to calculate the cost of excavation for finish grading, and the driveway. If subcontractors don’t drag their feet, a bid could possibly be completed in a week.
Keith Dietzen of Keymark said, “If it took eight hours or two days preparing the takeoff for a 10-room barndo manually, you can reduce that to about 15 minutes with our software. SmartBuild can change that equation.”
Basic construction for SmartBuild includes framing and finish, panels, cement, foundation, drywall, paint, and interior trim and generates material lists, pricing, and more. However, no HVAC, plumbing, or electrical is included, as the software has no logic for it.
Dietzen said that a contractor who does a live design session in which they work with the customer to get the layout of a project and works out the basic costs, then submits the documents to subcontractors, gets their costs, and adds it all up, can reasonably expect to provide a complete bid for the customer in a week to 10 days.
This lag is not confined to post-frame bidding, Rinks said, it is inherent in any large building that requires sub-contracted services.
Both Dietzen and Rinks admit that there is no perfect solution to putting a complete bid together, but both agree that software can take a lot of mistakes and wasted time out of the process.
How Do Contractors Handle the Discrepancy Between Time Spent and Bids Won?
While the majority of contractors may go through the process of getting a price on the whole barndo together, some post-frame builders have decided to keep it simple. They will bid for and build the barndo shell, subcontract out the interior walls and trim, and leave the client to figure out the rest. Other builders do the shell only. They avoid the hassles of putting together bids that include subcontractors’ pricing and having to play general contractor.
Leaving out subcontractors means the client has to figure out the rest of the project for themselves, which will work for some people as they may have decided to take on the GC role themselves to save some money. They may even have experience in some subcontractor work and plan on doing it themselves. On the other hand, those who are looking for a turnkey home without doing their own general contracting are unlikely to hire a builder just for the shell, so if you take this route, you may not be eligible to bid on some of the opportunities out there. However, that could be the way to go if there is enough work like that in your area or you supplement it with other work, such as pole barns, sheds, remodeling, or other projects.
Perhaps a more practical approach that some companies use to cut down on wasted time is pre-qualifying customers before offering a bid. It can be useful to both customer and contractor to ensure that the customer is qualified before spending a lot of time and getting the would-be homeowner excited, only to discover that they don’t have the income, downpayment, or credit to do what they have in mind. Helping the prospect to understand their situation, even if that means showing them that they will need to save money, improve their credit, or amend their plans can actually be a service to that customer. Hopefully, they will remember your help and come back to you when they are ready to build or offer you the chance to bid on the more modest project and mention your services when someone they know is looking at building a barndo.
Working Toward More Efficient Bidding
Both Rinks and Dietzen agree that it is not feasible to compile basic estimates on the utilities or other subcontracted work and apply them to new projects that seem comparable.
“If the estimate is too high, no one will buy,” Dietzen said. “If it’s too low, you lose money. If enough estimates are inaccurate, you will end up going out of business.”
The process time can be cut down by outputting the CAD files for the permitting engineer to review in areas where that is required according to Dietzen.
Rinks said the best way to cut down on bid time is to build a relationship with each subcontractor you work with. Have a main subcontractor of each type and a fallback subcontractor; they understand that you need a fallback and often are happy to get a bit of extra work. Working with the same trusted people and building that trust and goodwill will mean they want to reciprocate and get you your bid quickly. RB
