Evidently I bid too high:)

[Currier]

Mainly I stick with residential lawns. I have found how to make real good $$ and it doesn't take long to figure out all the little time savers.

BUT... periodically I get the opportunity to bid on commercial work. One time I bid out the local airport, another a complete subdivision. Just within the last two weeks I bid out a large apartment complex. They wanted the "personal touch" (yea right...) (they wanted el cheapo...)

They complained about the edging not being done,weeds in beds, not checking and breaking sprinklers, you get the idea. Mainly I just bid it because I have a little time on my hands and I was curious. I measured and worked it all up, sent it in. I called to see if they had any ??. "You are WAY out of the ballpark, I had bid 3286.00 per month figuring approximately 10-12 hours per visit (31 visits in a season). The manager tells me they are currently paying 700.00 PER MONTH!! I just laughed to myself. Evidently I do not have my finger on the pulse of the commercial market around here.

[excel25]

ROTFLMAO Am I missing something????
At your bid and 10 hr. per trip. 310 hr. at 39432.00per year.
$127.20 pr.hr. at present rate $27.09 pr hr.
does this inc. mulch? flower changes spring and fall? Fert.? seed?
How many sq. feet mowing and edging???

[Chip]

How many visits do you plan to make per month?
Are all your visits strictly labor or are there materials involved?
Without knowing any details I would say 700 is about half of what the bid should be and your figure is way out of the park.
If you are making those kind of numbers doing residential than stick with what you know best.

[Turfdude]

I bid a small townhouse complex forthe 2000 season. I reviewed all bid specs spring clean-up, mulching approximately 32 cu. yds, weekly mant, fert program, shrub/small tre pruningX2, aeration & overseeding, anuals, perennials, fall mulch, check operation of sprinkler system weekly, 3X leaf removal, etc... They claimed job by competito was sub par and of course it was. I put my #'s together w/ my foreman an we nailed labor times,materal amounts, etc. w/in 5% of each other. My bid was $17,500 for etir season (small complex) They asked me if that was a "1" in front as they have never paid more than $8000.00 for any year.

Lets see 64 cu yds of mulch ($3200.00 installed w/out cutting beds and weeding and pre-emergent). 32 mowings of 1.5 acres, 48 manhours 2X per season for pruning w approximately 15 yds disposal each time, and so on.....

All this for under $10G'sROTFLMAO

I was born at night, but not last night.

Currier,

Bid a fairprice that you are worth and keep your quality high. You get approximately 50% ofyour work from yourtop 10% of accounts. They appreciate the way you do business and what you are worth.

[Michael Wall]

I bid a condo complex for mowing several yrs back, gave a bid of $550 per cut. Manager calls and says it's too much,could I send 2 guys w/ mowers out for an 8 hr day for $150ROTFLMAO ROTFLMAO I didn't evan try to explain that bid price was for 12-14 man hrs.

[Crabgrassman]

Currier wrote:
.........................
I had bid 3286.00 per month figuring approximately 10-12 hours per visit
.........................

If you're cutting it 4 times a month (most months will be 4 cuts) then the hourly rate works out to be between $82.15 (40) and $68.45 (48) per hour. Although I would like to make that much money cutting grass every hour I just don't see it happening for me.

My bid based on your hours (48) would be around $2000 per month. That's still a lot more than the $700 the other company is giving it away for. Al $700 per month that works out to $17.50 (40) per hour which would only cover my costs (overhead and total tax liability). At 48 hours a month that would be $14.58 a hour and I would be losing money for each hour I worked.

[Chip]

I think these property managers should be educated on how to properly screen contractors for insurance and realistic quote expectations. The lowest price doesn't always produce the best quality. If I were looking for an estimate for a new roof on my house and 1 contractor came in $2000 dollars less than the average it would definitey raise a flag. Property managers that are always looking for a better price for sake of quality arn't worth dealing with.
I work for one property manager almost 6 yrs just plowing at one of his apartments. Next year he said I could do the mowing. It's a long story about who was doing the mowing but I understood. I said I would do it for the same price as last year and he said no I should raise the price. I did, we came to an agreement and I will be be doing the total maintenance this year.
This manager appreciates the service and quality I provide at a fair price. I would not consider dealing with a manager that is shopping for price. I always ask why a potential customer is looking for someone new.

[LoneStarLawn]

<b>Are you solo?</b>
If not you did say 10-12 hours per visit not man hours, so if it two of you (for example) then it would be 20-24 man hours per visit.

<b>What equipment are you running?</b>
<b>How big is the property?</b>
On large commercial properties some companies will better suited equipment can bid lower because it takes alot less time.

There is too many details left out.

[Currier]

Most everyone that has been around awhile runs Walkers around here. I must just be lucky because it is very realistic to make 65.00 to 80.00 per hour if you know what you are doing and do quality work. I've done this for 10 years and it definately took me some money losing experiences to finally figure out how to do better:)

Actually, I had the bid sheet since July and wasn't really interested in bidding it. Lots of cars, lots of windows, and lots of gripping from the prop. manager (red flag) but I finally had some time and I figure that you learn from your experiences. Yes, If I had been desperately wanting this account I would have bid cheaper, as it was I figured my bid on giving them everything they asked for:) At the least, I helped to not drive prices down. Granted, the prop. manager will always think of me as outlandishly expensive, but that is better than "the last idiot that did a teriible job."

[Runner]

Apartments are scum jobs, anyway. You bust you're rearend for them for a couple of years, then they sell you out to the guy that's 20 bucks cheaper than you. It happens all the time. I've bidded many apts. that wanted me to come in for free. Yeah, right!ROTFLMAO

[HOMER]

Sounds like you bid this in Alabama!

There will come a day when property managers will find it very hard to get bids.............the sooner the better. I don't even look at them anymore cause I know they won't pay squat.

Makes me wonder how anyone can make a living on these things. Surely somewhere in this country apt. complexes will pay a good fair price for quality work. Look at the trade magazines and what the budgets are for some of these places. If these people would quit pinching pennys they might lure some higher paying renters in to the complex.

[Currier]

Runner, You nailed it! Originally I was told "the guy that is doing it is doing a bad job quality wise. His kids are tearing things up, he doesn't edge., blah, blha, blah." THEN one litlle tiny statement that packs a huge punch ..."and he raised his prices..." Well he had done these apts for the last 5 years. When I saw his work it wasn't perfect but it definately was quality.

Homer I agree with you about the not wasting time bidding this baloney. Originally I had just filed the bid away but then I figured what the heck give the dice a roll and you never know what might happen:)

Off topic: I just got a call from a subdivision needing their common area sprinklers blown out! (dec 11) The temp. has been 16 degrees at night around here. Guess I'll fire up the compressor one more time...

[accuratelawn]

The property managers keep pushing for the low bid! And for some reason guys bid to get the work.
The parks dept here had a company mowing for $9 per acre.
The school system has a guy doing the properties for $14 per acre. No thanks!

[Runner]

I have a chance to get a township municipality; it's a large park, and on the property are a senior citizen's center, the police station and township hall (one), the fire station, two garages, a pavillion out back, and about a 1 acre pond. The entire complex is 20 acres, but much of that is taken up by pavement (street and parking lots). The whole thing is all pretty much wide open, with very little trimming besides around the buildings and such. The back is all more or less a large park, complete with ball diamond. A little Roundup can even be used on most of this stuff around there. Or in the LEAST a little inhibitor. The service that did it before, never cleaned the curbs, or even did much with the weeds in the beds. (a little snapshot would go a long way.) I have the chance to get into this at about $400 a cut, but I'm not sure if I even want it or not. I'm thinking I could probably knock it out myself in 6 to 7 hrs. by myself, and half that time running two units on it. I'm just a little leary of 20 bucks an acre, though. Sure it's all there in one stop, and it IS real smooth, but I look at 10 residentials put close together, and think to myself. "Man, there's a whole lot less turf there to cut, than this big place!"

[Lawngodfather]

I bid thei muni one time and unfortunatly won most of the bids.

Mow parks

Mow vacant props

Mow islands in the roads

Mow easments

Mow train tracks

Mow alley ways

I got all but the train tracks, 1/4 mile of weed from road to tracks, varying from 60 to 100 feet, had to go there at least 24 hours in advance to put no parking signs up, and they chraged for a damn permit also. Had to get it on Friday if you wanted to mow it Monday.

To cut the long story short, I found out I was way low on the others and way high on the tracks, I don't know how but some idiot bid it lower and found out he had to mow it every 3 weeks. Didn't specify till contract signing time.

Job took 8 hours with 1 crew of 3 and one of 4. $3200 a week, sounds nice huh. Signed contract while snow on the ground still after 1 month of working this. 2 weeks later it melt gets warm and a grass is growing.

We were out working they called for us to come cut ( they said now) contract said advanced notice. So next day we went to mow and they tryed to add more and more stuff on that was not specified in contract.

So we did a little more after sevral week it slowed down, not specified in contract they told us to cut back on cutting. We did and still billed them. contract said 28 cuts.

Well we found out this was the worst nightmare you could encounter, trash was unbelivable, people would pass you and park in your way, and throw trash in front of you.

Well after this experiance I found to bid all jobs at MY price, do quality work, go after high dollar accounts, stay away from apt. complexes, if I bid them do it at extreem high prices, etc....

Summery; If they don't want to pay your price, you don't need them.

[65hoss]

Reading some of these post tell me that we still have too many people that short change themselves. Your business, your liability, your equipment, your truck, your insurance policies, your employees and you still feel $82 per hour is way to high. What happened to profit? A $10,000 mower better produce more than $40 per hour. If not, we should all find new jobs. Especially for comm'l jobs. You have much more liability when on their properties. Cars are everywhere.

The original post didn't mention shrub work or mulch, but most apt complexes have that built into the monthly price. So with that in mind, his price could actually be low depending on amount of mulch.

[TGCummings]

I had an apartment building that I cut for one property manager for five years. I charged $165/month to cut it four times a month mow-blow-go. The place was around 2000 square feet, flat and easy, and took me about 20 minutes a stop. However, I hated the place because of the neighborhood and because of the tenants junk everywhere.

Property management for the place changed hands last summer, and the new property manager walked the place off with me. She asked me to start picking up the garbage at the place, blowing out the carports, and cleaning up the gutters while I was there. I told her it would be an additional $200/month. She said she'd get back to me.

She never asked again about that stuff.

She went with another service beginning in October. I've seen the place since and it's horribly scalped, unedged, and the weeds are growing out of control in the cracked sidewalks around the place.

In my experience, property managers care about nothing but being able to tell the property owners they have a service and they're collecting rent. By nature, they hire 'scrubs' for all work needed on the property, whether it's lawn work, electrical, plumbing, etc.

I charged a lot more for the place because I didn't want it. It was only worthwhile because I made a killing.

You did right by bidding too high. For this type of service you need to make a lot more to make it worth your while or let them find someone else. Both of you are much happier now... :)

[Jean'sLandscape]

Originally posted by HOMER

Makes me wonder how anyone can make a living on these things. Surely somewhere in this country apt. complexes will pay a good fair price for quality work.

Our companies do do apt's (12) and make money. How we do it? It's our rep and work. Also, we show up.


Originally posted by HOMER

If these people would quit pinching pennys they might lure some higher paying renters in to the complex.

Homer, got to remember something. Most MGR's are looking at bottom line and so what if they do awsome work. If I get a guy for $500 less, more money in the pocket for the mgr.

I do think also that the penny pinching is starting to end. Just no way you can get a properly liscensed operator without paying for it. When an apt. mgr. rents a single bedroom for $1400-$1700, in the long run, they have to pay for these crazy rents.

John