We aquired a 120 space park on 30 acres about 3 months ago. We kept on the park maintenance guy who we are paying hourly to do all kinds of general park repairs and along with rehabbing a few vacant homes that we got with the park. I am not finding that paying them hourly is the way to go. I was curious what other owners do when you have general park repairs along with rehabbing homes. Do you have them quote you for each project that they do in the park? do you contract everything out? It seems like it would be easy for the rehabbing of homes as I can have them give me a quote for each home? All I know is there has got to be a better way than hourly and trying to figure out if they are working or not.
Never pay by the hour – only by the job. Get a firm bid and make sure they stick to it. Hourly is a disaster – we once bought a park where they had paid a guy to clean an abandoned mobile home interior by the hour and, if you looked at the books – they had paid him $1,000 for a $100 job. Hourly is for suckers. And that’s exactly why the workman always wants to go hourly and never make a firm bid.
Frank has never been more right! I still have tire tracks from the last (LAST) hourly deal I did.