Why Are Contractors in Such Great Demand Right Now?

[magic]

I want to start interviewing contractors for a bathroom gut renovation but I'm having trouble getting people to call me back. I keep hearing that there is a huge demand for building trades right now. My guesses are it's due to pent up demand from the spring, there's a need to modify commercial spaces to accommodate social distancing, or people are home more and are motivated to renovate. But does anyone have any insight into this?

[aprilsails]

All three I would say. A lot of projects were delayed in the Spring which has cascaded through the summer schedule. My company is seeing lots of work for building entrance modifications and minor work related to Coronavirus. As to your third point there are a lot of people who have more money sitting in their pockets since they didn’t have vacation time this year. My parents had planned a one month Australian trip this winter and are now spending the money on their backyard since they don’t foresee travelling for two years. My neighbours cancelled a pan-Atlantic cruise and are now putting the money into some home upgrades. This is super common and the trades are scrambling for labour and materials.

[carmenere]

Yeah, I think it's all three of those - plus the low supply of homes on the market, which is leading many people to work with their existing spaces instead of moving. IME contractors can be flakey (especially those with no office staff) so it doesn't hurt to try calling/emailing a couple times before you give up. If you can get a referral from a realtor or another professional who deals with contractors, that may increase your likelihood of getting a response.

[definitelyO]

all of the above. we did work on our commercial offices as there was no one here to be disturbed by the construction. and we're in an industry where the majority of us will return to the office.
People are spending more time at home so want their homes to be "more" and are noticing the things they've lived with for so long and now want fixed. (we got new windows and a new deck).

but I will say that I've always had problems with finding a contractor even pre-covid…. hard to find one that is good with their skill and also has business sense. We reached out to 4 for our deck. 1) voicemail box full, no email listed - 2) no return call 3) came out and measured, met with us, no follow up on a quote after we reached out a few times 4) hired.

[Susie]

We haven't tried finding a contractor this year, but we spent 2+ months trying to get someone to take down an oak tree from our backyard in roughly May to July.  In addition to the things listed in the OP, it seemed like a bunch of places were down in employee head count due to childcare issues, so they were not able to take on as many jobs as usual.

[simpsongal]

Also low interest rates, so money is relatively cheap. It's interesting b/c we're obviously doing an addition right now but we've been planning to do it for 8 years

[Kristinmo]

All of the above. Plus, without travel and other expenses many have more money to spend on their homes.

[circa1978]

We had a flood in our kitchen July 3. It's covered by insurance and they connected us with a contractor. We still haven't started reconstruction, if that tells you anything.

[devonpow]

Everyone around here is renovating- if you are going to be stuck at home for a year or more people want to improve the space! We are lucky that we finished a big renovation right before Covid hit. We have a few smaller projects we want to get started and our contractor is totally swamped.

[redheadk]

My dad is a builder and they are so busy that I’ve been waiting 4 months to get his crew to replace my fence. We are not in his usual area and it’s not falling over so we are just sitting tight for now.

[libbygrl109]

I would guess all of the above. I know that in our case, both kitchen designers we talked to this summer said that there was a huge influx of people realizing, because they were forced to be home, that they were ready to do renovations. Both were saying in August that crews wouldn't be available until sometime in January. We haven't signed with anyone yet, so we are hoping that when we are truly ready, it won't be as long a wait.

[dr.girlfriend]

Yeah, and also people wanting to add more space for home offices, home gyms, room for their kids to homeschool, etc. We just wanted an electrician to upgrade a plug for us and were told it would be 10-12 weeks!

[lilac05]

In our area, we’ve got all of that plus recovering from the Derecho in August. I got a quote today for getting our garage door replaced and was told not until at least March. Siding is the same. We’re 10 weeks after the storm and the number of people who still have tarps on their roofs is unbelievable. I think I saw that 90-95% of properties in our city had damage (some of it was just trees down. I have yet to meet someone in that 5-10%, though. Contractors don’t have time and can’t get their hands on the materials.