Building a Smiling Woods Yurt

[Bob Rowlands]

It's very expensive to build nowadays. Keep in mind most of that cost is this. There aren't enough zeros in the income of land sales, developers, builders, banks, suppliers, and people that flap their gums to make a living. All the people on the cream end that drive new vehicles, are fat and have soft hands, and see money way differently then the lean tough guys on site actually doing the work.

You CAN find crews that will do good work for very reasonable cost relative to 'mainstream' companies. The way to find these guys is through asking friends, walking on construction sites where framers are working and asking them. You gotta be creative.

Another thing, if there's a fat old guy that climbs out of a new truck doing the estimating he will likely be more expensive than a young lean guy that looks like he works. You can tell alot by looking at what shape the estimater is in, and how rough his hands are, and how transparent he is in conversation. Just saying.