Contractors come cheap in a deflated housing market

Thinking about doing a home renovation? There's never been a better time to hire a contractor.

During the peak of the housing market, contractors had a certain disregard for the customer simply because they were swamped with jobs. Very often, they would say they'd show up at a certain time and then never materialize. Now that coin has flipped.

The old rule of thumb about expecting a job to run twice as long and cost twice as much as initially quoted is out the window. Today, your job is likely to finish on or before schedule because all the subs that a contractor might use are available and waiting for work.

I recently had a small-to-moderate home improvement done, and the contractor wanted to start the very next day after I called to offer him the job! The whole job would have taken two months in the past. Now it was done in a little more than two weeks.

Economies go in cycles, and the housing market went from being turbo-overheated to being frozen in the tundra. That means materials come cheaper, labor comes cheaper and the quality of workmanship is better because people are hungry for work.

Ironically, those who can afford to do renovations are not doing them because there's so little payback. For every renovation dollar you spend, you're lucky if you get 50 cents back in resale value. But that misses the point of a renovation; you do it because it will improve your quality of life at home, not because you're expecting return on investment.


In the 18 years that I have been in the mortgage business, I have successfully closed over 3,000 loans that total to almost $1 billion in production. My goal is to make your mortgage experience as easy as possible. Call me today for programs to help you with your renovation needs. 864-451-7894