How to tell if a rehab crew is actually free before handing them the keys
An owner of six units across two small buildings who has never hired anything bigger than a $9k bathroom job, now facing a two bed unit needing about $24k of work, runs into a familiar problem: every crew says they can start in two weeks, and that estimate is often wrong by months, not because the crew lied but because the job ahead of them is running long, and the job ahead of that one is running long too. That chain is invisible from the outside. What actually functions as signal when vetting a crew. Asking to see their current jobsite is one useful check. Asking how many guys are on payroll versus subbed is another, since that speaks to how much slack the crew actually has. The deposit ask is sometimes read as the clearest signal of all, on the theory that a crew that needs money to start is a crew with no cash reserve and therefore no bench to draw from. None of these are folklore exactly, but none are decisive alone either. In a labor market where good crews are rarely idle, the crew that says yes fastest is often the one worth the most scrutiny, not the least.
Best single signal that a crew can actually start when they say they can?
16 votes
