Newer company here. Have a couple hundred residential properties for lawn care but haven’t gotten any bigger stuff or HOA stuff. Have the opportunity to bid on one tomorrow and I’d like to get it.
What is your pricing structure for something like this?
What are the people at the HOA expecting to see? If that makes any sense
Am I supposed to be throwing out a number annually? Do I just calculate about how long I think it’ll take to do all the mowing and give a price? There will be mulching and stuff too and fall clean up stuff. Or could I say
Mowing month price would be this. Mulching and extra stuff is billed at x amount per guy plus material (and then just write a bill)
Sorry if this is confusing I feel like I’m just talking in circles. Don’t know what you don’t know. Any help appreciated. Just want to make sure at least the people don’t look at what I bring to the table and are confused.
What kind of property is it? A condo/townhome property where you’ll have lots of little yards plus entry ways, center islands and sidewalks to edge? Or a HOA with a bunch of houses and all you’re doing is the entry ways and center islands?
Depending on what all you’re doing determines what you bid it for. Rates in my area are around $100 per person per hour. Adding in mulching can pretty much be double the cost of materials (so if mulch costs you $1,000 you charge $2,000 to lay it).
If you feel like your number is good you can always offer a fall/spring clean up as ‘part of the contract.’
I’m the treasurer for my HOA (mid-size community of single-family homes), and we just finished creating an RFP that specified exactly what we expect from our grounds maintenance contract. We were tired of lackluster service from companies that just hire a random crew and mow without regard for other aspects of grounds maintenance, so we spelled it all out in an RFP so there was no room for interpretation.
Weekly or biweekly mowing across the common areas, trimming and edging each visit, blowing trimmings to keep things neat. Pre-emergent (4x/year) and post-emergent (as needed) herbicide applications in specified common areas, tree shaping and limbing along roadways, and mulch/pins straw twice a year in beds and tree wells. Fungicide and insecticide are both ad-hoc add-on treatments as needed.
We aren’t looking for the cheapest solution; we are looking for a complete solution…and we expect to pay handsomely for it. We asked for an all-in price for the year and were strict about a two-year contract with the option to extend for a third.
I imagine different communities will have different requirements, and obviously, different HOAs can only afford certain services. Of course, finding a good crew is not easy, and not all crews have certified pesticide applicators, etc. So YMMV.
@Shan
I’ll also add that we fully expect that the contractor we choose would subcontract some of this out to another crew. Our only ask was that each crew provide a certificate of insurance.
@Shan
Fantastic that y’all were so specific about what you want. As a ‘weed and feed’ guy, it is SO frustrating treating HOAs because it’s generally impossible to know what they want… You just have to hope they stay patient long enough, and keep shoveling complaints, and hope the people on the phones at the office relay that info…
But honestly what usually happens is just nobody says anything and quietly stews in their complaints until one day they throw a huge fuss about a specific thing that’s extremely inconsequential… But it’s just because they wanted an excuse to complain because they hadn’t yet complained about the things that actually bother them… (Eg. Spraying too close to OR not close enough to play equipment, gardens. Not spraying non-turf areas, which we aren’t legally allowed to do.)
Btw, the pre-emergent 4x/year thing is pretty wild. I’d be amazed if you got a (good) company to bite on that, because the cost-to-benefit for that is pretty unfavorable (for everyone)… Spray companies usually sell the spring pre-emergent at a loss because it means they’ll save a bunch of money on post-emergent for crabgrass later in the year. Depending on the location, there’s either 0 or 1 other time of the year would have a comparable return on that investment…
I would say that it would be better to specify performance metrics. (Max % ground cover of controllable weeds)… But that would require the company to have control over the watering practices.
@Vero
You are spot on about complaints. Our community actually has a landscape committee with lots of active participation, so the complaints actually do lead to change (crazy concept, right!). The committee lead actually has his own landscape business, and he and I are both certified pesticide applicators in our state. So we actually do keep close tabs on things, and are in regular contact with the regional manager of the grounds maintenance company each week about what was missed, etc. Suffice it to say, we are knowledgeable enough to know when a company is trying to pull something on us.
As for the pre-em comment… I agree with you that it’s tough to find someone willing to take on the task. But we are in the process of re-establishing/beautifying common area that has been neglected for years. So we are going to ride these guys hard to make sure they are doing what we have asked for. Most of the common areas are Tif-Tuf or Tifway 419, so we could get away with 1-2 times a year if we needed to (not like my personal TTTF which I need to stay on like a hawk, not to mention fungicide May-Sept), but we’re hoping a couple years of 4x will help to control weeds and let the turf come back to a thicker stand. After this contract, we will probably back down to 1-2x/year as you suggest.
Almost all of our common area is non-irrigated, so no way they can control watering practices. But again, that’s the beauty of Bermuda…unless we are trying to root sod, it’s pretty drought tolerant.
Indeed it is lol. That’s what it takes though, being organized about it and actually bringing it to the attention of the company through the proper channels (with a paper trail).
we are knowledgeable enough to know when a company is trying to pull something on us.
Honestly, in my experience, when a company is genuinely trying to pull something when it comes to fert and weed control… (And it can’t be chalked up to differing philosophies and working with different sets of facts)… It’s usually more so that they don’t really realize how wrong their practice is. There’s a much higher percentage of people in this industry that are incompetent than they are malicious ones… Though the malicious ones are almost always also incompetent lol.
There is one topic where malice is commonplace though… fungicides. It’s usually at the higher levels and the techs just don’t know any better. Long story short, using fungicides is just crazy complicated and they NEVER do it right, and they know it… Nor do any DIYers use them right for that matter.
Almost all of our common area is non-irrigated, so no way they can control watering practices.
Well that’s better actually. The vast majority of the times where weeds are a major issue and resist control, it’s excessively frequent watering that’s the problem. If you get a non-irrigated lawn weed-free in the spring, it’ll be weed-free for the whole summer.
I work in consulting and will say that you can’t really start talking numbers until the scope of work is clear. If they have it well defined like one of the examples above, then you have something to go off of and find your price.
If they don’t know what they actually want, that is actually okay, and use your time to better understand what they are looking for. Just like you don’t know what you don’t know, they are in the same boat.
Try to get to a clear understanding of what they are looking for, then step back and think about how you want to price it. It is absolutely fair game to ask them if they have a preference on pricing structure.
I view proposals as a 2-way interview. Good luck, OP.