Are These Guys Trying To SCREW Me?
Financially, my father is a train wreck.
At 77, his net worth is somewhere between zero and negative $120, depending on what he has in the pawn shop.
He just never figured out money.
Which is how he wound up homeless, and how I ended up renting a house for him.
That’s a big expense, of course, so to mitigate it, I bought a house for him to live in.
It’ll be a classic BRRR play, but we’ve got to clean it out first - it was a hoarder house - and take a couple of the rooms down to the studs.
With my regular demo crew having retired, I needed someone new, so I met Luis and Junior, who were referred to me.
“This is a big job,” Luis said.
“Yup.”
“We can finish by Monday.”
“Good.”
“How about $6,900?”
Y’all, it’s a big job, but it ain’t that big.
By the time he’d left, we’d agreed on $3,500.
That’s a big difference!
So, was he trying to screw me?
I’m not sure yet, but this is how I’ll find out.
I sent them to do another much smaller job this morning on a cosmetic flip not far from the horder house.
I didn’t ask for a price, just sent them.
There are two possible outcomes:
1 - They bill me a fair price, and I pay it, and we keep working together.
2 - They bill me an inflated price, and I pay it.
I expect #1 will be the outcome.
But if it is #2, I’ll give them one more chance by saying this:
“I will pay this bill, but if this is your price, we won’t have any more business together.”
If it goes that route, I suspect they’ll revise the price and never try that again.
I know, because I’ve done this before.
The thing is, I don’t fault the guys for shooting for a higher price on our first job. They want to set a benchmark, I get it. And fair play to them for checking whether I had more money than sense.
But I look for long-term partners, not one-time providers.
If they’re going to be my new demo crew, I need to know I can send them to do a job without seeing the quote first.
So, they’ve tested me.
And now I’m testing them.
I’ll let you know how it goes.