The scope walk is the only reason this refresh landed near budget

Bought a 1,100 sf three bed in a tired but stable suburb last spring. It's rented now at $1,650 and the rehab finished at $39,400 against a $38,000 budget. Everything I read before this said expect 20 percent over, so 3.7 percent over feels like a win worth writing down.

The one thing I did differently: I paid a contractor $400 to walk the house with me and write the scope himself, room by room, before anybody bid it. He was not bidding the job and he knew that going in. He wrote 41 lines. Then three crews bid the same 41 lines and I could actually compare them, because they were pricing the same words.

Where it landed: kitchen cabinets and counters 14,200 two baths 9,100 LVP through the whole floor 5,600 paint inside 3,400 panel swap plus odds and ends 4,900 rot under the back threshold, found in week two 2,200

What nearly broke it: cabinet lead time went from three weeks to seven after I ordered. The crew had another job starting and if they'd left I would have lost them for a month, which is the story I keep reading in here. My GC resequenced and did both baths and the flooring first, and I swapped to an in-stock door style I liked less. Six and a half weeks instead of five.

What I'd keep: the paid scope walk, and the rule that no change happens until there's a dollar figure in a text message and I answer yes. The 2,200 of rot was the only change order all job and I knew about it the day they opened the wall.

Answer

1raj_mehta14CapitalPRO6

I think the $400 bought you two things and only one of them is the comparison shopping.

The other one is that the 41 lines each had a number attached, so when the rot showed up in week two everybody already agreed on what the original job was. That's the whole fight in most of these threads. People argue about whether something was in scope, and there's no document that says. Yours says.

verity, the part I'd steal is the dollar figure before work starts rule. I've been reading subcontracts for a few months trying to understand how paper works and the same idea shows up in real ones as a written change order clause, sometimes with a line saying verbal changes don't bind anybody. Your text message version is the small scale of that.

The thing I'd check if I were doing this next month is whether the allowance lines had actual products named. If your scope says cabinets 14,200 and nothing else, the crew's $14,200 cabinet and your $14,200 cabinet are different objects and you find that out at delivery. If it named a line and a door style, then the swap you made to in-stock was a measurable downgrade you chose, and you could have asked for money back. Did you?

7 replies

4carlos_nunezActive

The resequence is doing more work here than the scope doc. If those baths hadn't been ready to start, meaning if you'd had a plumbing rough or an inspection sitting in front of them, your crew leaves and you're the guy posting about losing seven weeks. Did you know the baths could go first when you bought the cabinets, or did that just happen to be true?

1devon_pierce Get yoursPRO5

How did you find the guy who wrote the scope, and did he mind that you were going to shop his words to two competitors? I've been building a list of crews for a year and I still don't know how to make that first ask without sounding like I'm wasting their morning.

2nicole_adeyemiPassivePRO5

The panel swap is the line I'd watch if anyone copies this. Permit and inspection timing on electrical work varies a lot by jurisdiction, and in some counties the inspector's calendar is the schedule whatever your crew says. Ask the AHJ before you build the sequence around it.

2bmoreno23AB1B

Coming from zero here, what does allowance actually mean in this context? I've seen it three times today and I've been assuming it's just a budget line, but vellum is talking about it like it's a specific thing in the contract.

2luis_carrera Get yours

I've been modeling rehab budgets in a spreadsheet for four months and this post is a small insult to that spreadsheet, in a useful way. My model has one cell called rehab. Yours has 41 lines somebody who owns tools wrote. Paying $400 to convert one cell into 41 is a better trade than anything I've done since March.

1brandonlee36Passive

The reuse is where this pays off twice. I'm nine doors in and my scope doc for a two bed turn is the same document every time with the numbers updated, and it took about four properties before it stopped growing. quarry is right that the resequence saved you, but the reason the crew was willing to resequence at all is that they could see exactly what work was left and that they'd get paid for it. Vague scope means the crew hedges by going where the certain money is.