The issue with your analogy is that we did not start off with poorly reviewed, bottom of the barrel places (aka the fast food equivalent of GC's, if I am understanding your analogy correctly). Also, each of the 3 times this happened, we picked from a different pool of GC's, so the overall sample size was much higher. Each GC provided an in-person consultation with the GC manager (or whoever was overseeing the project), photo books of previous work, testimonials from previous clients, and referrals from the insurance company and the condo management company based on (supposed) good prior experiences. It's extremely annoying for both the management company and the insurance company if the GC is bad at his job, so it's also in their best interest to provide accurate recommendations where possible. Further to that, we did not pick the cheapest quote in any of the instances, and the price differences were significant. While we did not pick at random, we might as well have, because like I said the presentations were all identical and it's virtually impossible to do meaningful due diligence on dozens of subs from 3-5 different GC outfits, even if we had months to do so.This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote
My point was that in order to do any meaningful due diligence, I would first have to get a list of his sub-contractors, track down the actual individuals doing the work, and investigate each of them individually (finding references that they do not provide me with, viewing their work that they have not pre-selected, etc.) And that's just for one single GC - there were several we would have to do that for, and by the time we finished them all, they would probably have new employees because turnover is so high. Even without a time crunch, does that sound reasonable to you? The problem I had with GC's every time is that nobody you talk to is actually doing the work, and the people doing the work may not be the same people who did the work that their glowing reference is referencing, or their photo books are displaying. The GC manager might be the best, most detail oriented guy ever - but then they send in the minimum wage labor to do the work and hope people don't notice the shoddy work, or accept poor work because they don't want to wait another 6 months to move back into their home.
You'd be in the same boat whether it was a big condo job or a single home renovation - doing meaningful due diligence on sub (or sub-sub) contractors would be incredibly difficult, not to mention extremely time consuming if you could even get their information from the GC in the first place.
I'll ask again - if it was just me, and it was not time sensitive, what would you suggest I do for due diligence when evaluating dozens of different, individual sub contractors? Because talking to the GC or project manager themselves is worthless.
Also what is your experience with GC's? I've talked to 10+ and used 3 of them over a combined period of approximately 18 months. You have yet to mention your own experience(s), how you went about sub-contractor due diligence, how long you spent on the decision, etc.