A licensed GC (NYC + LA) will verify your contractor bid in 12 hours. Spot padded allowances, missing scope, and arithmetic gaps before you sign. Forward the memo to your contractor and watch the price drop.
20 free slots this month · Active flippers only · Bid PDF required
| Stated Contract Total | $287,450 |
| Sum of Line Items | $227,450 |
| Unexplained Gap | $60,000 (20.87%) |
Seven checks, one memo. Every Bid Defense Memo covers all of the following.
No meetings. No spreadsheets. Submit your bid, get your leverage.
Upload the contractor's bid PDF through our intake form. Takes 90 seconds. We need the bid, the address ZIP, and the contract total.
A licensed GC reviews the bid against live permit data, ZIP-level labor and material rates, and the four-part forensic check: math, scope normalization, license verification, market calibration.
Delivered in 12 hours. Red flag, yellow flag, or green light. With the dollar figure. Forward it to your contractor if you want leverage. One client got $18K off the day they forwarded theirs.
A 22-year-veteran contractor handed my client a bid for a 1,100 SF Upper West Side gut renovation. Professional presentation. Clean referral from the neighbor. Stated contract total: $287,450.
The line items summed to $227,450. A $60,000 gap. 20.87% of contract value. With no explanation.
When I flagged it, the contractor said "it's covered in overhead." Demo was already a separate line item on page 2. That wasn't an answer. That was a retroactive explanation.
My client forwarded the Bid Defense Memo to the contractor that afternoon. The corrected bid came back $41,000 lower by 4pm.
"Experience doesn't fix arithmetic."
| Stated Contract Total | $287,450 |
| Sum of Line Items | $227,450 |
| Unexplained Gap | $60,000 (20.87%) |
Scope normalization changes the math. Here's the $28,000 hiding in a "general allowance" line.
| Contractor | Stated Bid | Normalized Bid | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contractor A | $94,500 | $94,500 | $0 |
| Contractor B | $118,000 | $118,000 | $0 |
| Contractor C | $79,800 | $97,800 – $107,800 | +$18K–$28K |
Contractor C had a $10,000 "general allowance" that itemized to $18K–$28K in real scope.
Budget overruns and contractor disputes are common, not rare. Three data points from public sources:
Autodesk summarizes KPMG research indicating that only 31% of construction projects came within 10% of budget over a recent three-year period.
Source: Autodesk / KPMG ↗NYC states that home improvement contractors performing work costing more than $200 must have a DCWP license. Yet not all bids include a verifiable license number.
Source: NYC 311 / DCWP ↗Cost overruns, change orders, permit issues, and payment disputes are among the most common sources of construction disputes for homeowners and investors.
Source: Ansbacher Law ↗Investors closing 3 to 12 deals a year get a subscription. Single bids always available at entry level.
Full forensic review of one contractor bid. Delivered in 12 hours. Forward it to your contractor.
5 Bid Defense Memos per month. Priority 6-hour turnaround. Quarterly market calibration report for your ZIP.
Learn more about the Bid Defense Memo · Learn more about Investor Pro
I'm Richard Golding. I run Metro Contractors in New York and California Construction & Remodeling Experts in Los Angeles. I'm a licensed General Contractor in both markets. CSLB #1130438 in California, DCWP #2034005 in New York. I built CostCheckGPT because I sat across from too many investors who were about to sign bids with $40K, $60K, $100K problems in them that no one was going to catch until the project was half-done. If you have a bid in hand right now, send it to me.
Deep-dive pages on specific topics.
Submit the bid. Get your memo in 12 hours. Know exactly what to push back on before you sign.
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