A major home renovation project can be a dream come true or a nightmare that costs you more money than you planned. The contractor you decide to use will determine whether you have a great experience or lose a lot of money. A remodeling contractor is a company who can design, estimate, schedule & manage all the details of a complicated remodeling project.
The state of Illinois does not require general buy reviews online contractors to be licensed, bonded or insured. Because of this many homeowners find it difficult weeding out the honest-reliable professionals from the fly-by-night companies.
One of the highest number of complaints filed with the Illinois attorney general’s office is against contractors. In other words, a high number of people end up very unhappy with the contractors they hire. There are many things that can go wrong — from poor quality of workmanship, to not even finishing the project and disappearing with your money. Sometimes the problems are not as obvious, such as a contractor using poor quality materials or neglecting to pull the correct permits and not building with-in local building codes, both of which can hurt or even prevent you from selling your home down the road. However, there are also plenty of honest, qualified, reliable, contractors in your town. As a homeowner about to undertake a remodeling project, it’s up to you to find one of the good ones. Online review sites have become the leading way for homeowners to reduce the possibility of hiring the wrong remodeling company.
The 3 Best Review Websites to Find a Remodeling Contractor
1. Angie’s List
Angie’s List evaluates companies using a scale similar to a report card, with grades from A to F. Each company is rated by the following criteria: punctuality, quality, price, responsiveness, and professionalism. What makes this site unique to the others on this list is that it requires a monthly fee for membership. By requiring an email address, home address and membership fee, this helps to reduce the amount of fake reviews.
2. Yelp
Yelp grades companies based on a one to five star rating system. It has primarily been used for reviewing retail locations and restaurants, but recently has become a more active site for reviewing contractors. Yelp is known for their proprietary algorithm that was developed to battle fake reviews. It evaluates whether a review is authentic and filters out reviews that it believes are not based on an actual personal experience with the business. Filtered reviews are moved into a separate area and not counted towards the businesses’ star-rating.
3. Houzz
Although Houzz is mostly known for its millions of images of residential interior design & remodeling, it also is a great source to find reviews on local remodeling businesses. Similar to Yelp, it uses a one to five star rating system. What makes Houzz different is that you will not only find reviews from homeowners, but you will also find peer to peer reviews. This will help you get a sense of how the company is viewed by other businesses in the construction industry.