How To Bid Bigger Than Usual Job?

STRIPERSorWork?

Hello ,
iam a general contractor in southern Rhode Island i specialize in residential remodeling and custom home building! My jobs range from $ 200,000.00 to about one million.
The reason im posting today is , recently i started some work on the new homes of two individuals who are buisiness partners and are in the process of building multiple buildings on one site which will include everthing from roads ,drainage parking landscaping etc......
They will also so be commercial below and residencial above (condos)
this job if i can figure out how to bid it all will be the biggest job of my career and could set me up for the future in life and in buisiness.
so i guess you could say this is going to be somewhat of a little downtown area......just guestimmating id say it would be in the 2530 million range.
Both of thier houses will soon be complete and they are very happy with my work ..so that brings me to today , they have told me they would like me to try to undertake and price this project and gc it!
I explained to them that it is an aweful big project for me and im not sure if i could do it!!!!
They also explained to me this could be a chance of a lifetime...so im kinda at a loss on what todo or even how to go about bidding on something this big. If i was to do this project i would obviously sub it all out and let some of my existing guys be foreman or suporizers.......
so i guess my qustion is ...is there someone i can higher to help me estimate this? or what is the best way to go about this?????

sorry about my terrible typing and spelling !

any advice would be geatfully appreciated!

All the plan have been pre approved by the town....are town is very strict, everything is wood and historical architecture.
oh yeah it will be a three phase project. nine buildings.

Thank you ! W.H.Johnson

Thewoodman

Wow!! That sounds like a cool deal for yet also a scary deal. I don't really have any good advice to give accept be careful you do not under bid it and go bankrupt. If you bid it right it would be a great business move. I have a couple of bigger than average jobs that I am now bidding and the customers are trying to rush me t finish the bid. I finally told them "I will not rush a bid and chance under bidding". If they want me to do the job I need time to bid it right. Probably not much help but good luck with it. Let us know how it goes.

STRIPERSorWork?

like you said , it doesnt help me much....i have a year to bid ..thanks again for replying!!!!!!

Nac

Well there are companys you can hire to do you takeoff for you then you just have to plug in the numbers.

STRIPERSorWork?

i understand that ..... my local lumber company does take offs for me on material downn to the penny on material, i just figure out my labor!
So your saying there is companies out there that will do take offs on the the whole project?

or am i better off hiring an estimator and offer him a commision if the job is landed?
If i come anywhere in the ball park of any other bids, which i plan on being higher becuase i already have a relationship and respect of the only investors!
Thanks sincerelt for the advice nac!!!!

joasis

Or you could look for an experienced estimator, with the project range you are looking at, and see if it would justify his compensation to have your own guy work on the project. A great incetive would be a percentage of the project dollars if successfully bid and completed...big incentive.

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Debookkeeper

Do you already have subcontractors that can handle this scope of work? I work for a GC - and any large jobs we are bidding is crunch time in the office as far as making copies of all the blue prints for all subs & suppliers we want to bid the job. We get proposals from all of them, and then it is a matter of markup, general requirements, etc to pull the numbers together. I guess my point is, if you have strong subcontractors - all their quotes should help you to pull your numbers together. Very exciting for you - congratulations!

dayexco

i sense you're a very good "mechanic" at your trade. it's rather apparent if they're wanting you to take on a project of that magnitude. you ever consider taking on a minority partner, someone who has the estimating, office skills that would compliment your company? something to roam around in your head.

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someday, i'll be as patient as Nick.

Nac

Yes you would probably have to brake it down to takeoff for your site work and then a take off for your archeticual work.

ruskent

If the investors really like your attention to detail etc. Maybe it would be better if they hired to as a super just to keep and eye on the GC to make sure everything is built to spec.

Stone Mountain

Been there, done that. Sorta.
In the late 80's, one new home builder gave me more than a million dollars worth of work. I was forced to get a line of credit, expand my operation, hire more people, etc, etc, etc.
Then he gave me almost as much work doing warranty repairs for other trades. I had 30 men going, doing nothing but repairs, and 70 men doing decks. I doubled my volume in one year.
This was during a tremendous building boom at the time. When the boom went bust at the end of 1990, so did I. I had all these people, and all this infrastructure, and ntohing for them to do. I laid off people, sold off equipment, but I was stuck with leases, unsaleable tools, high overheads, yellow pages advertising, you name it. I wound up going bankrupt.

A $25 million dollar project is not something to be done out of the backseat of your pickup. you need managers, contracts, dependable subs, a suitable line of credit, knowledge of the work and the local building code, yada yada yada.
To leap from a $1 million dollar project to one 25 times larger in one fell swoop, would scare the bejezus out of me.

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Thewoodman

Stone Mountain
Do you have a crew going now or are you working solo. I have three guys full time now and I am debating whether to pick up another three man crew next year. I don't want to grow to fast though. Any thoughts.

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Mike Finley

I'm glad Stone Mountain posted, because I have been following this thread and really felt like the odd man out here. This thing to me sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

We talk all the time about profitability and how to price, and so many people don't seem to have a clue. So, it seems like trying to price a 25 million dollar job by letting somebody else come up with your numbers is business suicide to me.

If you took 5 guys who work on these size projects all the time, I'm betting not all 5 of them would price it profitably, what are the odds when you don't have a clue?

Stone Mountain

I've seen public tenders with a 50% difference from the high to the low bid.
A few years ago, I happened to be in attendance when the bid for a school was opened. Low bid was somewhere around $8,000,000, while high bid was almost $12,000,000. these were all LARGE well known companies, invited and pre-qualified bidders only, with 100% performance bonds as a requirement of bidding, and a $50,000 bid deposit. No one was in it just for fun.
Imagine if one of them was a beginner, so to speak.

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www.fenceanddeck.ca

Stone Mountain

At this very moment, Woodman, I have 9 crews going. I myself do not do the physical work.
Steve

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STRIPERSorWork?

i know how to bid jobs ! the building ,foundation , mechenical etc.....
im just trying to figure out how to bid out a larger job and also all the issues with roads drainage and parking...im trying to figure out if there is a more efficient way to bid out larger jobs than just getting a regular take off and then doing my own figureing from there!
Stone Mountain just to let you know i dont work out of my pick up i have a 2200 sq ft historical residential that i converted into Real Estate office and my companie office (1100sq ft) . where i have a full time office manager and a part time designer for houses we develope. The garage a added on to and converted into a work shop and and two large bays to service my vans,pick ups and some smaller site equiptment .
I also have 12 other people i employ on top of the two mentioned above..and own the average build 9 full custom homes a year along with several other rehab/addtion projects!
And i do sub out alot of my work mechenical ,painting,roofing,flooring, masonry,tile i also sub out alot of my framing..most of my guys do finish cabinets and one is a project manger! One guy also ends up taking care of punch lists.
As for my self i do alot of the custom finish work (mantles etc..) mostly i price out, manage jobs and meet with clients .

Pearce Services

I worked for a GC that had a very good relationship with a company that was planning an expansion that was larger than he could typically handle, and they decided on an arrangement like this.....


The company retains the CG s a Owners Agent, or Project Manager for a fee of 10% of the total project.

The GC supplied 2 full time laborers during the process, billed out at his standard hourly rate.

All work that was within his capacity was done by his crews at a predetermined fixed price.

The GC reviewed and authorized work for all sub bids, but the owner of the company paid the subs directly, so he had very little financial risk.

This system may allow you to do this work, and minimize the risk for the work you appear to be concerned about, ie roadwork.

smellslike$tome

No Stripers for you! Only work for a loooooooong time! Congrats and good luck.

Brian

This may not be totally relevant, but it may help shed a little light on the subject.

I'm a painting contractor. Average job is about $3200. This summer I looked at a job that rattled my chains. My eye ball price was $200K. I was shaking at the knees, and drooling at the mouth. This was a repeat customer, so I knew I had a very good shot. I was scared that my price would be totally wrong.

My price actually came in at $78K (so much for the eye ball method). This was about 25X my average job. We routinely do $10K jobs, and occasionaly $25K jobs, but this was huge in my book.

I broke the job into about 10 phases, which allowed me to look at it like 10 smaller jobs. It became very easy to estimate then. How do you eat an elephant-- one bite at a time. I broke the job down into bite size pieces.

With change orders, the job wound up around $93K. We did it in 5 weeks. I made almost 20% net profit. I was having a good year. That job made it a great year.

Certainly it's one thing to go out on a limb on a $78K job, and another thing entirely on a $25M job. But the principles are the same.

Brian Phillips

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