Why Is My Estimate Taking So Long?

You’ve met with a prospective contractor. Shared your vision and must haves for your kitchen, bathroom, fireplace, or some other space in hour home. Your contractor took pictures, measured the space, asked a bunch of boilerplate questions…hopefully he took copious notes.

And, then he said, “I’ll be in touch.”

Sounds a bit like when you met someone in your early 20’s at a bar, gave them your number, and then waited.

So, you ask yourself, why is my estimate taking so long?!

Contractors and their approach come in a variety of flavors. There are those who are painfully busy managing too many jobs, and try to get to developing estimates late at night. Then there those that simply aren’t motivated because they don’t know how to run a business. Neither of these two types are worth your time because they aren’t obsessing the client experience to the fullest extent and are happy living paycheck to paycheck.

However, there are those contractors who after meeting with you, go back and begin to evaluate your project. They summarize their measurements to ensure they have the square footage of the different surfaces. Accounted for your must haves and any intricate details that are likely to drive up the cost of the project outside of a prototypical project similar to yours. And, then they begin calculating internal man hours and ping their subcontractors to provide them estimates for the work they will be performing. If the contractor is prioritizing your estimate, the man hour estimations should take no more than 1-2 weeks depending on their schedules. The wildcard in all of this are their subcontractors.

I have seen where it’s taken some subcontractors 3-4 weeks to provide their estimate to a contractor. This can be a function of a myriad of reasons. This isn’t the issue. Most clients can wait to begin a project and have everything lined up. Where the disconnect occurs is in the communication.  What we prefer to do is communicate with prospective clients on a weekly cadence to provide them status updates. That way prospective clients have an understanding why there’s a hold up and when they can anticipate a final bid package. I will say, when I’ve been on the client side, or in the case of my business as a general contractor I never hesitate to reach out to my subcontractors to gain an understanding as to why the estimate is taking so long.

The next time you find yourself asking, “why is my estimate taking so long?” Pick up the phone and hold your contractor accountable. He’ll be glad you did. But, if he isn’t, maybe it’s time to find a sales-obsessed contractor who wants your business and fits your schedule.