Contractors are often asked, and architects are often asked, why are the bids so far apart?

I’ve got a bid of a million dollars.

And I’ve got a bid of 500,000

and I’ve got a bid at 650,000.

Why is there such an enormous spread?

This comes down in my experience to choosing contracting companies that are very, very similar in scale, and production and type of work that they do.

If you’re choosing contractors, which all three of them are basically guys with a van one man shops with four or five employees your bids going to be very, very similar.

But if you’re comparing that to a full service construction firm, with real back office, with several vehicles with real depth of experience in getting projects over the line with dealing with engineers with dealing with the Department of Buildings with dealing with architect, there’s going to be a significant cost difference.

In reality, the materials that go into a job don’t really change that much.

It’s all specified by the architect, we all price them from essentially the same places.

The labor, however, can dramatically vary.

And in my experience, if you’re paying top dollar for labor, you’re getting a top quality product.

Now, the second angle to this is some companies sometimes bid a project very low, seeing that there are discrepancies in the plans, things that they can manipulate so that they can then land you with an additional work order or a change order further down the road.

Many times I’ve had conversations with clients a year or two after they haven’t gone with West Village GC, and the conversation has been it didn’t really cost anything different from what you originally priced it at.

So when you’re facing this conundrum when you’re looking at this complex problem. Make sure that your bidding like for like.