Anonymous wrote:Can you get some sort of second job to help pay it down? Weekend babysitting? Dog sitting? Retail?

Don't be ridiculous, OP isnt a teen.
I can only imagine telling my physician friends I'm babysitting for a few extra sucks a week. Lol.

Is this a kitchen remodel or a large addition?

20K is a lot.

PP here -- forgot the comment about fixtures. a decent contractor will give you a fixture budget in the contract for good quality midrange, have you pick out your own fixtures, then if you go over the budget, then you pay that. it is easy to spend $200 on a faucet or $1000 if you want something high grade. usually the high grade stuff breaks the fastest because there are more things that can go wrong with it (esp if there are electrical parts like hands-free sensors, etc.)

Contractors tend to overcharge during seller times. They try to make 25% profits on top of paying themselves a salary. They can go down to zero profit and make a salary.

A good contractor won't include surprises in the estimate. They will not budget for things they know nothing about, but the contract will say that you'll pay extra for extra things. Otherwise all the people who don't run into problems would be the ones getting 'raped" because they'd have to build in so much extra cushion for everyone, then would be pocketing that extra. that is just as unfair, more unfair because they aren't getting anything for it.

Also every time you make changes it raises the price on your dime. My dad was a contractor (had a 3 person team to build houses). he was always running into people who want to make major structural changes like "let's move the stairs to the other side of the house" after it is already framed up, and then act surprised that's not free. or people who change the plumbing and electrical work all around after it has been done once to the specs and they decide to move appliances or outlets. it's more than twice as expensive because you need to pay for removal of the old and rerouting/supplies for the new. If they did it wrong the first time, sure but you'll pay if you just don't like how it was supposed to be.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, they pad estimates. There is also a major difference between a small surprise and big one.

No estimate covers the discovery of significant additional and foreseen problems.

The world gets a lot more interesting when you begin to open walls or retrofit old systems, or discover just how much someone else did with no permit.

A good contractor will already include that in the estimate

Yeah but crappy builders notoriously include low ball budgets for things (sinks, faucets that kind of thing).
If you put the crap in that the budget covers you'd be replacing it all again in a year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dog sitting and dog walking! You can make $30-40 a day per dog. My friend has 6 staying with him over this holiday weekend. It's a great way to bring in extra cash since I assume you won't be taking many weekend vacations for the time being.

Your friend is gouging people.

This is the going rate here. Dog sitting in your home is $40/ day.
Dog walk , half hour, is $25.
Visiting a dog is $35 first visit, two visits is $50.

You should always budget 20% in overages for a major renovation.
Ours went higher because we hired a moron. It was bad!

Anonymous wrote:Dog sitting and dog walking! You can make $30-40 a day per dog. My friend has 6 staying with him over this holiday weekend. It's a great way to bring in extra cash since I assume you won't be taking many weekend vacations for the time being.

Your friend is gouging people.

Anonymous wrote:my renovation project went completely off target. so right now i am in floating the renovation costs onto a credit card and it's going to total about $20,000. i had signed up for a 0% APR 15 month credit card and will transfer that debt to the 0% APR card and aim to pay it off in 15 months, which is ambitious. It's going to mean shelling out $1333 a month to pay down this debt.

how many of you experience nightmare renovations where you simply run out of cash but need to get the job done? i have nowhere else to turn but to float this debt.

Someone told me after the fact that with renovations, expect double the time and double the cost. Unfortunately, that was so true. The scope of the project expanded pretty quickly. I was $40k above my initial budget and had to tap retirement savings.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, they pad estimates. There is also a major difference between a small surprise and big one.

No estimate covers the discovery of significant additional and foreseen problems.

The world gets a lot more interesting when you begin to open walls or retrofit old systems, or discover just how much someone else did with no permit.

A good contractor will already include that in the estimate

Yes, they pad estimates. There is also a major difference between a small surprise and big one.

No estimate covers the discovery of significant additional and foreseen problems.

The world gets a lot more interesting when you begin to open walls or retrofit old systems, or discover just how much someone else did with no permit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If OP unearthed something totally unforeseen while doing a renovation, I can see an additional 20K being needed, easy.

We renovated a fixer-upper and had planned for 100K, which then ballooned to 200K due to issues we discovered AND upgrades we decided to do along the way. Luckily, we had the funds for it, but this is to illustrate how quickly costs can increase.

Contractor should've paid at least half of this. You got raped by the contractor.

? What a weird comment. We changed what was written in the contract, silly.

Agreed. That person has clearly never undertaken a serious reno. When, for instance, unexpected structural issues arise behind walls, under slabs or in soil that is not the GC's dime.

Contractors already pad estimates we always make sure to negotiate.

This is a good lesson for anyone considering a major reno. Get a HELOC in place before you begin. Lenders won't write on a construction project, but they will before you start. Most HELOCs don't cost the borrower anything as long as they aren't closed within 2 years (no closing costs, and some will eat the appraisal as long as you close on the HELOC). If you don't need it, great. But it will save your bacon if you run into unexpected overruns.

Also, to the OP, don't listen to the dipsh*ts weighing in with their judgment. In a major renovations stuff happens. Sometimes you realize you need to move a wall or change scope because you won't ever have the chance again. And sometimes structural or other hidden stuff happens and you have no choice but to deal with it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If OP unearthed something totally unforeseen while doing a renovation, I can see an additional 20K being needed, easy.

We renovated a fixer-upper and had planned for 100K, which then ballooned to 200K due to issues we discovered AND upgrades we decided to do along the way. Luckily, we had the funds for it, but this is to illustrate how quickly costs can increase.

Contractor should've paid at least half of this. You got raped by the contractor.

? What a weird comment. We changed what was written in the contract, silly.

Agreed. That person has clearly never undertaken a serious reno. When, for instance, unexpected structural issues arise behind walls, under slabs or in soil that is not the GC's dime.