| Getting the Best Price on Home Improvements |
| Written by Charles Faust | |
| Monday, 19 May 2008 | |
Can I ask for a Discount on My Home Improvement project?Last weekend I was talking to my relatives about the FAQ section of my website and asked if they had any questions. My cousin asked if contractors give prices expecting the homeowner to offer a lesser amount. His question made me scratch my head for a while before carefully giving him a long winded response. For the most part, home improvement contractors provide you with a price that covers their material, labor, overhead and reasonable profit. Some contractors will inflate their prices in order to offer you a "sale price" or a "same day sale incentive". Other contractors will call you back a few times offering more discounts in order to earn your business. These games leave homeowners with a bad feeling since they will never know if they paid a higher price than the lowest possible price. The question still remains, "is my current price the best price that I can get"? With so many different companies using different pricing structures it's next to impossible to answer the question. My company for example offers our lowest possible price upfront, we will never call back to offer some sort of discount. Most of our clients are comfortable with our "no haggle pricing". Some of the people we provide quotes to are so use to price drops and call back discount offers that they do not believe in our pricing since it is different than most other replacement window companies. My solution comes down to one word, TRUST. If you trust your home improvement contractor then you will feel comfortable doing business with him/her. Most contractors focus on showing how great their company and product is when most homeowners end up buying from the contractor that they trust. Nobody in their right mind would buy the cheapest window on the market if they did not trust the sales person. On the flip side several people buy replacement windows for 2x,3x,4x,5x the price of the lowest price because they feel that the salesperson is offering them the best product for their project, at the best price and the product will be installed by the best installers. In conclusion, if you feel that your salesperson is telling you the truth then do business with them. If you feel that they are being shady or they did not earn your trust then find another company. Another last resort to feeling good about your price is to ask the contractor to bring 3-5 recent contracts for jobs similar to yours. You can review the contracts to see how your price compares to the other prices. The bad side of this tactic is that you are letting the contractor know that you don't trust them. I would really suggest some careful wording so you do not hurt any feelings "would you mind bringing 3-5 contracts from jobs similar to ours over so we can see how our job and price compares to other projects?". Good luck with your project!                 |
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