Wanted to poke some of you on here about how things are going in today’s market on new residential and even commercial construction bids. For years I’ve been exposed to and used the per opening method and had success. The past two years however I’ve had to scrap it entirely and price from fitting number one and on. I use a weekly pricing quote or mostly use whatever I bought my last stock at. It’s incredibly tedious but I had started hearing enough about guys not knowing where the profit has gone. I decided to switch methods, play it safe and boy am I glad I did. Things have been profitable but not by accident, for a custom 3k sq ft 2-1/2 to 6 bath home with all the bells and whistles I spend easily 5-8 hours plumbing the entire job start to finish on paper, inventory it, price it. Then it’s all a margin game. The percentage of profit against the total revenue for a house makes me nervous though. It’s low. Considering I provide fixtures, water heaters, water softeners, hard lines , resircs, freestanding tubs, custom showers. Comfortably, I’d like to gross 25-30% but I’m losing to bids that are in the 10-15% range. Is this to be expected with the times or are some companies really not paying attention to that bottom line? Grossing 10-15% is dangerous with overhead. Luckily, my quality, speed and buisness etiquette have kept me busy and I’m able to stay slightly above that threshold, but
I question growth and sustainability in this type of work. Running service out of a fully stocked ready to plumb anything from the ground up box truck isn’t really what I envisioned. I’m a new construction thoroughbred, from the shovel in the ground to turning the water on at the kitchen sink, it’s where my passion lies. Love doesn’t pay bills unfortunately. I see favorable margins from service work, but my setup is for being efficient in one spot for a few days, not going job to to job in a day. Any takers?