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Recruiting Renovators

By Morgan Saylor

Whether you’ve made plans to renovate your home or maybe you are refinancing or purchasing with a 203(k), recruiting a home renovation team you can count on to see your project through to the end is key.

It’s true, there are horror stories everywhere you look about contractors or designers who ditched a job midway through, leaving homeowners in a lurch. Being sure you’ve got a good team behind you for your renovation will give you peace of mind – something anyone who has dealt with a reno will tell you is super important!

Zillow Porchlight’s Christina El Moussa has broken down the method for compiling a crew of renovation-confidants.

Plan – There’s no shame in hiring an architect if you have no clear plan for your space. Otherwise, piecing together information about the vision for your renovation is and share this with your contractor.

Create a List – Listing your candidates based on recommendations by friends and family is a good place to start. Reach out to people you know who are in the real estate industry. But don’t stop there – do your research online by checking out customer reviews.

Call Them – Reach out to the candidates after you’ve narrowed your search. Ask for more references, make sure they’re licensed and insured, and they are experienced in the type of work you are looking for.

Interviews – After talking on the phone, set up an in-person interview with them, so you can meet and show them the property. A contractor should be willing to meet in person and see your house in order to give an accurate estimate for the project at hand – if not, you should move on.

Careful Selection – Make your decision. Odds are, if you’ve made it this far down the list you’ll be closer to making up your mind on who you want to work with anyway!

Be Present – Just because you’ve hired someone doesn’t mean you should just disappear, but you also don’t want to smother the leaders of your reno vation either. Make yourself available to your contractor, architect, interior designer (or whoever!) to answer design questions or permit purchases, or anything else that might pop up.

Source: http://www.zillow.com/blog/home-renovation-team-trust-201009/

Tags: Renovate, Remodel, Interior Design, architecture, reno, tips, renovation, contractor, 203k Loan, house, home repair, fixer-upper