aline said:
I can see your point but if you used the square foot price for the small deck wouldn't this make you less competitive when bidding on a large deck?
Sometimes yes, if left that way. Sometimes no. Depends on many factors. Your salesmanship comes into play here. Can you sell it?
For example, if I wire just one bedroom in an unfinished basement my costs per square foot will be higher than if I were to wire the whole basement or the whole house. It costs me more per square foot to wire just one bedroom than it does to wire the whole basement.
Right on. Same theory. Your cost to build one house in the middle of nowhere, vs your price of wiring 100 tract homes in the same development.
Who would price these the same? The guy who went out of business probably. The sq/ft price would be totally different. It is not as cut and dry as the author to that link would lead you to believe.
Seems to me if I were to take the same square foot selling price for wiring just one room in the basement and use it for wiring the whole basement or the whole house I would not be competitive.
Once again, right on. You can't. Experience would lead you, to know how to price by the sq/ft. To say it can't work, and show a poor example of a deck installation pricing, is ridiculous.
There are 2 big players here. They do tract and multifamily stuff. They have been doing it for years. Real cutthroat. They price everything to the builders as sq/ft, by minumum. Then get all the extras. That is how they do it, and rake in cash. All some builders care about is sq/ft price.
The thing that bugs me about that author, is the way he takes you down one thought path, just to prove it wrong. It is that "strawman" theory at it's best. First show a bad example, then prove how much you can beat it up.
Any system can work, does, and will continue to generate money. It depends how much experience and effort you put into it.
