Freelance Estimating Services

The main reason you should use freelance estimating services for your pre-construction calculations is that they are not beholden to your builder. A builder's estimate can be too high if the company would like to either pad the bill or artificially come in "under estimate." Conversely, if the builder thinks it can get you to sign if it provides a lowball figure, an unscrupulous salesperson may do just that. Either way, incorrect estimates can play havoc with your budget, cause you to give specifications that you otherwise wouldn't have, and more.

In order to make a proper business decision, you need to get a cost estimate from someone who isn't also trying to sell you a building or house plan. This is where construction estimating services come in. These companies are not builders, and don't get paid (or not paid) depending on whether you accept construction services or not. This eliminates the biggest conflict of interest inherent in builder-provided estimates. Therefore, you can rest assured that you'll get a figure that the estimator believes is truly accurate.

Once you have your estimate from one or more freelance estimating services, you can then proceed to get quotes from builders. Comparing these quotes against your estimate will make it easy to tell if a construction company is far off the mark. Typically, you should get quotes from multiple builders, too, so you can tell which ones are close to your estimate and which ones are mysteriously far from it.

Even though estimates from construction estimating services are not binding on builders, they can be used during negotiation. This is especially useful if you'd prefer to work with a builder whose quote is currently a bit high.