Horror Reno Stories Ep 8

Another week, another story!

Watch our tiktok video on this if you lazy to read.

This came from the mouth of one of our IDs, who has been in the industry for over 20 years, and have close relations to this firm that we are going to talk about.

Variation Orders (VOs) are part and parcel of renovation. This could be due to (i) last-minute changes by homeowners (ii) items excluded from quotation (eg. electrical) or (iii) hidden costs.

It is the last item, hidden costs, that we want to talk about.

There is this less-than-honest boss who decided to take 0% profit to close the customers before the renovation. This means that their initial quotation was extremely cheap. Of course, many people bit.

However, when the VO came out at the end of the renovation, it is extremely shocking.

An initial contract worth $30,000 ended up with a VO of $40,000, totally $70,000.

This was more than double of what homeowners originally thought it was.

Many homeowners were angry, but many ended up paying to get it over and done with. This was how they earned and grew to become a substantial size.

As-is, many of the online reviews claim that they had a good experience. But when we did door-to-door survey on this firm, the review was as follow:

They were an ID firm but they were like a contractor without design at all. What was promised was not delivered - the initial quotation was 30+ k, but the final amount ended close to 50m. Date of delivery was very delayed, we were supposed to get the house in December, but we only got it in May. At the first meeting, kept pressurising us to sign contract with them. Hesitating whether to share online or not, but in the end decided not to.

Such behaviour should never be tolerated, and no homeowner has to go through the same experience again.

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