Hi All,
I would like to renovate my condo ~1000 sqft soon. I would like to hire a main contractor to supervise my house renovation. Reasons to hire a main contractor:
- He is familiar in this business and therefore has his own preferred sub-contractors who are listen to him, so renovation quality can be assured.
- He is experience to give advice on renovation ideas, steps and pre-cautions.
- Just face 1 person and he handle the rest. No need me to handle the conflicts between sub-contractors.
However, some concerns below make me think twice before hiring a main contractor.
- Taking too high commission for his own because he many reno items (kitchen cabinet, tv console, wardrobe, plaster ceiling, wiring, lightings...) to play
around.
For example,
Case 1:
If I hire 2 sub-contractors separately to just make wardrobe & tv cabinet for me, wardrobe Sub-Con can only charge me RM5k maximum, TV Cabinet Sub-Con can only charge me RM3k maximum. By paying them separately for 1 particular reno item at such high price, normally they dare not to cheat you because each of them only do one thing and the final product is actually representing their company reputation.
Case 2:
Similarity, if I hire a main contractor, ON TOP OF HIS personal commissions (says, RM10k), I pay him extra RM8k as well to build wardrobe & tv cabinet for me but he has to find his own Sub-Cons. In the end, the main-con might still bill me RM5k for wardrobe & RM3k for TV-cabinet but both wardrobe & Tv cabinet are actually worth 30% lesser than the bill amount. OR he might give me a high quality wardrobe which worth RM6k but the tv cabinet only worth RM500. So the extra RM8000-(RM6000+RM500)=RM1500 goes into his pocket. Sometime, we are not expert, and has no professional knowledge to detect the quality of the product given. One example is, all contractors claims that they are giving melamine but melamine itself can have so many types and may not be 100% melamine. This can make the final price quite a big different.
Case 3 (Ideally):
The reason I hire a main contractor is to provide me some good renovation advices to save my money as well as ensure the final product quality is better than what I will get in Case 1. Taking the above example, because I have already pay the main contractor RM10k as his own commissions, I would expect him to tell me that I can still get the same quality of products like what I will get in Case 1 even at a lower price, because, the main contractor has his own sub-contractors who can definitely charge a cheaper price compare to me (doing the same thing but to approach those well-known company). That is what I thought about the main-contractor functions and why he worth for that RM10k commissions.
Apparently, I know Malaysia company such as Legend Kitchen which act like one stop station (similar to the function of main contractor) can do everything for you. However, Legend Kitchen, the way they do business is pretty much like Case 2 already, quality of products may not worth for its price.
I know in Singapore, there are main constructors from certain company who are really professional, after they take their commissions, they will really do their
best to save the cost & ensure the product quality for their client (just like Case 3). Unfortunately, Malaysia has very few such companies. If I were to find the independent main contractors (no company one), I have to bear the risk these main-contractors might cheat and run away after they received payment.
So, what can I do?
Hire separate trade : Cheaper, but house owner need a lot of his/her time to do coordination works.
So, it depends on which is your concern. Money or time.