Anyone getting reasonable prices from contractors nowadays?

[tallyho8]

I just had 2 contractors working on my property today and feel like they gave me reasonable prices for the work they are doing. One is doing fence work and the other is doing concrete work expanding my driveway apron which was too narrow to easily get trailers into the driveway.

The concrete man was new to me because my last one had his phone disconnected. He gave me the lowest bid and sounded like he knew what he was doing. He had to cut the curb off about 33' of my existing 6" deep driveway apron, dig it out, form it, install rebar and highway mesh, pour and finish it and clean up after. He is charging me $1500, about $11 a sq. ft. I hired him 4 weeks ago and he is just today getting around to doing the job.

My fence man is a neighbor who has an excellent reputation for doing a great job at a reasonable price. I had him put my front gates up 2 years ago and am just now getting him to put up an 88' fence. It has solid pickets, not tubular, and solid fleur-de-lis on top. He is charging $3500 or about $40 a foot. I hired him 4 months ago but he could not start because the Mississippi River was above flood stage and the Core of Engineers will not let anyone dig within 1500' of the levee while the river is that high. Finally the river went down and he put the posts in last week and came back today to work on the fence.

I found these prices reasonable for work in our area, but would have done these jobs myself 20 years ago. Luckily, I am blessed to be able to afford to hire people to do the hard work now.







I had typed up this post to put it in another thread that got closed while I was typing it up so i started this thread. I am confident that our fellow TBN members will refrain from the remarks that got the other thread closed and just post some of their own experiences here, please?

 

[BoylermanCT]

I have lined up a concrete contractor to pour a 1200 ft (30x40) concrete pad for my new pole barn. Charging $4000 or $3.07 a sq ft. 25% will be 5" thick (in the shop area), the rest 4" thick (animal stalls) plus 2 10'x5' aprons in front of the doors. Was very pleased with the price. He is a well known contractor in our area. I will be doing the prep work of leveling the base etc. so he will be installing rebar and mesh and pouring the concrete. Forms are already in since they are the skirt boards of the barn.

 

[BrokenTrack]

I work at a Federal Facility and contractors are doing a lot of work there right now, and they too are doing really good.

They are putting in some really productive days, are easy to get along with, and the young people working...are really pounding out some work. I try and point out good workers when I see them doing a good job so in the future we keep those contractors because sometimes you get some sloth-contractors.

Like the OP said, I am seeing a full days work, for a full days pay. It is impressive compared to a few years ago.

 

[Frankenkubota]

North Carolina has been booming for 40 years. When I moved here in 1980 we had 5 million people. Today, 10 million. The contractors have been busy here for 40 years so, they get what the market will bear and you can’t blame them.

Supply and demand.