Nailing Down a Home Contractor : Construction: Referral firms put tradespeople and homeowners together--a shopping service for those who haven’t the time or inclination to search for a plumber, a wallpaper hanger or a mason.
Myrna Allen wasn’t sure where to begin. She was buying a townhouse here, had a long list of remodeling and decorating chores to be done and, with the demands of her job, had no time to shop for contractors.
But in one of those serendipitous little events that can bring big benefits, the loan officer handling Allen’s mortgage application gave her a flyer for a company in Laguna Niguel called Job Well Done.
In one phone call, most of Allen’s home improvement problems were resolved.
Job Well Done, a 2 1/2-year-old company run by former Chicago-area restaurateur Nadine Petropoulos, is a referral service specializing in home repair and home improvement projects.
The company is one of at least five in Orange County that exist to put tradespeople and homeowners together--a shopping service for homeowners, realtors and landlords who haven’t the time or inclination to search for a decent plumber, a wallpaper hanger a brick mason. They’ll even send out a contractor to arrange to build an entire house.
In Orange County, the increasing number of new homes, the aging of the existing housing stock and the growth of two-worker families holds a lot of promise for the nascent home repair and improvement referral business.
The potential for growth is clear: there are no hard and fast figures on two-worker families in Orange County, but the number of county residents with jobs grew by 35% from 1980 to 1990 while the number of households increased only 20% in the same period. “That suggests that there are a lot of two-income households,” said Bill Gayk, an analyst with the Orange County administrative office’s advance planning unit.
The growth of Job Well Done over the last 30 months shows there is demand for such services.
Petropoulos said it took her six months to sign up a sufficient number of tradespeople to start advertising her service in 1989. She had about 60 on her list when she started, and they received $90,000 worth of work from jobs Petropoulos sent them out on that first year.
Last year, Petropoulos’ stable of contractors grew to about 100, and she dispatched them on nearly $300,000 worth of jobs.
With 110 tradespeople on her referral list this year and an aggressive expansion campaign under way, Petropoulos expects her contractors to bill a total of about $375,000.
But even with quadrupled billings, Job Well Done still is a relatively small firm compared to Bonnie Pauker’s End Result-Orange County.
Pauker, an Orange resident who founded End Result nearly seven years ago, declines to disclose gross billings except to suggest that they passed $1 million a year some time ago.
She says she represents more than 140 tradespeople and has served more than 8,200 clients since splitting off from the original End Result in the San Fernando Valley in 1984.
While Pauker’s customer base comes from all over the county, Petropoulos so far has done most of her business in South Orange County.
Of the other services, Home Improvement Referrals in Newport Beach and A-1 Contractor Referral Service in Costa Mesa cover the entire county while the newest, 18-month-old 1-800-CONTRACTOR of Orange, covers most of Southern California.
Each service operates by providing customers referrals to contractors and verifies the contractors’ licenses, bonding and insurance. Each says it calls former customers before agreeing to list a contractor. And the services say they scrupulously follow up on referrals to make sure the recommended contractors are doing quality work.
But there are differences in service levels.
Pauker and Petropoulos have the biggest stables of contractors and typically send several to bid on large jobs. Petropoulos often drops in on the job site to make sure everything goes smoothly. On several recent jobs, she said, she coordinated the efforts of a variety of subcontractors, scheduling their time and checking opening and closing the house each day so the the homeowner didn’t have to leave keys with several contractors.
Dianne Felton, owner of Home Improvement Referrals, says she usually gives callers the name and phone number of one contractor, sometimes two if the job is large, and lets them call directly.
Nik Froelich, owner of 1-800-CONTRACTOR, said his telephone operators determine the best contractor for a specific job and either give the homeowners the contractor’s phone number or, if the homeowners prefer, will have the contractor call them to make an appointment.
And there are big differences on the side of these operations that the consumer never sees.
Felton said she charges contractors $300 to $500 a year--plus a percentage of the gross fee received for each job they get from her service--to be on her referral list.
Froelich said he doesn’t charge a commission or referral fee but bills each contractor on his list a flat monthly fee. He said he has about 250 contractors in his service area, which runs from Ventura County to the Mexican border. About 80 are headquartered in Orange County, he said.
Pauker and Petropoulos eschew any upfront or monthly fees from their contractors, making their money instead by charging a percentage of the contractor’s final bill. They maintain that they are freed from any obligations to the contractors by listing them at no charge.
Froelich and Felton, as might be expected, take exception to any implication that they are only sending out tradespeople who have paid to be listed, regardless of their qualifications.
Felton, with a 50-contractor referral list, maintains that charging an annual fee makes her contractors more motivated “because they are willing to invest some money.” And Froelich says charging contractors a flat monthly rate to belong to his referral service eliminates pressure on them to increase their fees to customers to cover a per-job commission.
For a lot of consumers, however, it doesn’t matter how the contractor is paid or why the company is listed with a service.
What counts is quality, price and convenience, said Ann Burk, whose Laguna Niguel home was recently painted by a crew referred by Job Well Done.
Burk said she read about the referral company in a weekly newspaper and decided to give it a try because she and her husband “have had some bad experiences picking contractors ourselves. People wouldn’t show up, or they quit in the middle of a job. I figured that by sending us people who’d been screened already, we’d avoid that.”
Burk said she has been “absolutely delighted” with the contractor she and her husband selected from the three referred by Job Well Done.
“For us, the time savings and the fact that they were already screened were the important things. We just don’t have time any more to do what you have to do to get a good contractor.”
How to Use a Referral Service Using a home-improvement referral service can save a harried homeowner a lot of time. But it’s a good idea to check out the referral service itself. Here are a few things to consider to avoid an unpleasant experience:
* Ask for references. A good referral service checks out contractors before adding them to its referral list. The referral company should willingly give you the names and phone numbers of several of its customers so you can ask them how the service was.
* Ask how the service is paid. While services typically don’t charge homeowners, some charge the contractors for the privilege of being listed, some charge a commission on each job, some do both.
* Ask for a complete rundown on each contractor being referred to you. At a minimum, the list should include how long the contractor has been in business, several references and verification of the contractor’s licenses, bonding and insurance.
* Consider asking for several referrals if you are planning a large, expensive job, so you can solicit competitive bids.
* Call the local Better Business Bureau or police department to find out if any serious complaints have been lodged against it.
