Unregistered

Is there alot of money to be made being a roofing contractor.Is it hard to find customers that trust you at first.Because I know there is alot of competition everywheres

Grumpy

Let me answer by asking you a question. Where are you located?

There is alot of money to be made at anything you do including roofing. Why do you think there is so much compitition?

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-Grumpy
Chicago Gutters Chicago Roofing

Unregistered

well i looked in the yellow pages and there is atleast 15 other roofers here in louisiana.i wanna open a roofing bussiness but i dont know if ill get work with all these other roofers that probably already have good reputations.

pgriz

As with any business, you can make very good money if you know what you are doing. As for competition, well again, you can deal with competition if you know your trade. Not to boast, we're a specialist roofing contractor who often gets 3-4x more than the "competition" quoted. Customers who are prepared to pay the premium get much better quality and reliability. We get much of our business through referrals from existing customers, so our customers believe in the value they received from us and want to let others know.

However, if you are not interested in doing a good job, just want the "easy money", then please consider another trade. Roofing has already enough amateurs playing at being roofers. The legitimate contractors have to work very hard to earn our good reputations, and we don't like people who screw the customers to pretend that they are like us. On the other if you are prepared to do it right, then there's always room for another good tradesman. There will never be too many of these!

Unregistered

Like the last guy said there's lots of lousy roofers out there trying to make a buck. Worst I saw was a two month old roof get tore off due to poor workmanship (new construction). 20 different problems with the installation.

I've found it's the hardest to find builders to work for. Usually if they have a roofer it's hard for them to fire them and hire someone they know nothing about. Lot's of builders here in MN seem to care more about bottom dollar that quality. Luckily, my three builders know quality and pay for it.

Last year as my first full year of being a licesenses roofing contractor (one man operation) I did 10 residential tear offs. All were from referalls and none were from advertising. Some of my bid were the lowest (low overhead being solo), some were higher than others, all in all the 25-30 year labor warranty is what sold most roofs.
My grampa built barns and homes and my father has roofed full time for 25 plus years.
There is a good amount of roofers in every area but quality is not found very often.

Unregistered

That reminds me! quality means the homeowner gets one bid and signs the contract. It's happened to me a couple times now. When I ask the homeowner if my bid was in the ballpark of others they've said that you came so highly recomended that we didn't get any other bids.
It's tough to find good laborers, good ones can make good money!