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Answer from our Guest Expert Mark Bower of Aberdeen Mobile Home Repair PAGE 3 Tricks of the Trade for Getting Jobs As far as gleaning information on new homes being built in your neck of the woods, your local city or county planning office would have those statistics since all new homes require building permits from them. As you know, general contractors build most of the new homes, and they often use the same subcontractors for every home they build. Starting out as an unknown in this scenario would be a tough nut to crack. If your overhead costs are low and your pricing is competitive, you may want to consider bidding commercial or government jobs. Again, a general contractor will oversee the entire project. But the general will usually hire subs to do work such as painting. Because those bids are advertised, getting your pie into that oven would be much simpler. Here's how to land some commercial and government jobs. First, find out how jobs are advertised. Many are advertised in the legal section of the local newspaper. See if your area has a builders' association of some sort, and whether or not they publish a newsletter that might feature advertisements for bids. When a bid is advertised, look who the architect is. Then contact the architect's office and gain a set of plans and specs. Within a week or two after the bid has been advertised, the architect will have a list of general contractors who've requested plans. Fax your estimate to all the general contractors on that list. If you're new, it wouldn't hurt to make a personal contact with these general contractors. I hope this helps, Dave. Good luck! Mark Bower, Owner of Aberdeen Mobile Home Repair Page 1 - 2 - 3 Enter your search terms Submit search form       Search Idea Cafe Web Small Business Tax Center • Idea Cafe Home • Sign Up • Biz Grant Center • CyberSchmooz •Coffee Talk with Experts • People in Biz Profiles • Starting Your Biz • Biz Planning • Running Your Biz • FREE Trade Publications • Marketing • Financing Your Biz • Human Resources • Legal & Biz Forms • Managing Your Biz • eCommerce • You and Your Biz • Gen X • Work@Home • The Fridge • De-Stress • Send an Award • Send an eGreeting • Yoga @ Your Desk • Web Guide • Idea Cafe in the News • About Idea Cafe • Advertise on Idea Cafe • Contact Us • Privacy Policy • Site Map • Small Biz News Copyright 1995-2024, Idea Cafe Inc. Downloads are for personal use only, not for resale to others, and may not be reprinted in any form without written permission from Idea Cafe Inc. DISCLAIMER: We hope whatever you find on this site is helpful, but be cautioned that it may not apply to your own situation, or be totally current at any given time. Idea Cafe Inc. and all of its current and past experts, sponsors, advertisers, agents, contractors and advisors disclaim all warranties with regard to anything found anywhere on this family of websites, quoted from, or sent from Idea Cafe. and its related sites, publications and companies. We also take no responsibility for comments published by others on these pages. TRADEMARKS: The following are Registered Trademarks or Servicemarks of DevStart, Inc.: Idea Cafe®, Online Coffee Break®, The Small Business Gathering Place®, Take out Info®, Biz Bar & Grill®, Complaint-O-Meter®, A Fun Approach to Serious Business™, CyberSchmooz™, and BizCafe™.