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We need a pool repair in our HOA, so I have heard a lot of things about the market. Recently, we were told that CA and other transplants were happily paying triple the normal rate for new pools in PHX, and fucking up the entire market. Is that true? @ihon
We were told that the contractors are making so much bank on back yard pools, that they have no interest in repairing/replacing our 30 year old Olympic sized pool.
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No, transplants are not paying double or triple. They are paying the going rate and the Phoenix market is catching up to where it needed to be. It was, up until 2 years ago, lower than any place else in the SW market (CA, NV, NM, etc.) by a large margin. With demand up, prices are more realistic.
Basically what is happening is that supply is low and demand is high. There are extreme material and labor shortages. Demand is up, with everyone selling 150-250% the rate they were 2 years ago. So prices are up. Material cost of everything from rebar to tile to travertine has gone up with very little notice. So many companies are also charging a higher rate to cover for price changes. You contract for a pool and decking/tile doesn't get installed for 4-6 months. If it goes up in cost, who pays the difference? Clients, who sign a contract, don't want to pay it and contractors won't/can't eat the cost. So you get charged a higher percentage up front to cover the loss. I know for the last 2 years, one phase (excavation, rebar, plumbing, elec., shot-crete, etc.) has been either a break even or loss on many of my projects.
Worst yet, business owners want sales people to share in the loss, even though I have no control of timeframes or when material gets ordered. I left a company as I got tired of hearing how much we didn't make while the owner rolled up in his new Range Rover that the dealership did a $5K brake job on. This was after record sales. So I'll take my skills to somebody that will reward me. I've already make more in bonuses in 45 days than I made all of last year. So with certain companies, the sales people are charging more as they are getting squeezed by the clients & business owners.
Remodels are a pain in the ass. They take longer, everything is harder to do, and nobody wants to pay for work the gets exposed through the project. HOAs are a pain to deal with. They want a quote and you don't hear back for 30-120 days because they need to vote on it. Then they want you to provided cut sheets on specs of thing you install. When you chip out the pool and find a broken pipe or exposed rebar, they want you to cover it. But they don't want to pay the premium up front.