Home Improvement Contractor - Licensed Contractors

Are bids from home improvement contractors typically negotiable?

Sure, I realize *everything* is negotiable, and the only way to find out is to ask. But I'm wondering if people actually do it often. The purchase price of a home is expected to be negotiable. So is the purchase price of a car. So is the salary on a new job. Do home improvement bids from contractors fall into this category? Or even close?

Public Comments

1. Get several bids then talk to the contractors you like about the prices. You can negotiate a better price, especially in the winter when they are hungry. However, the cheapest contractor is almost guaranteed to be the wrong choice.
2. i do not negotiat my prices...in fact i have been known to double them when the client calls me back to straighten out the screw up the lower bidder did. when people try to negotiat with me, i just give them the names of others in the trade, and they will go with my bid or they won't, so the answer is...not even close.
3. As a contractor, I try to give my customers a quality job at a competitive price. When they want to cut the price, I typically ask them what portion of the requested work that they want to delete from the bid. I don't try to provide the cheapest price because that entails using the cheapest craftsmen, and the cheapest craftsmen are cheap for a reason. So, no, I don't really negotiate my prices and don't spend much time with them if I sense that type of attitude. There's too much work out there to waste my time being unrealistic.
4. sure they are,but you get what you pay for