I will start off by telling you that any estimating program out there is only as good as the time you put in to it. Using an estimating program out of the box and expecting great results would be like figuring that buying Microsoft Word would instantly make your college term papers get a B or an A. That said, I have experienced 45 different estimating systems over the years and all had there pluses and minuses. All were geared toward more complex commercial estimating, but all had residential capability. All would require you to dial in the residential to make it accurate and quick. That said, for residential only, I would get in to an inexpensive program. This is relative, because none of them are cheap. You need to also decide, what you want the program to do, especially regarding material pricing. If your time is less valuable, then you can update your pricing manually, if more valuable you can spend an extra $1500 or so a year to for automatic pricing that you can rely on for about 75% of the stuff you use. The rest you need to stay on top of anyway. My self, I have found Accubid, and Conest to be top dogs for all around estimating. I don't like McCormick, period. I really like EBM from Visionsoft for a more budget approach, but still convenient and strong. EBM also has excellent support staff and they are small enough that you will get to know their names and they will know yours.
