5. Finding a contractor

This is the second most important part when building a house. We consulted a few colleagues on their experiences. Heard of a few bad ones. Most of the experiences are bad. Contractor running away in the midst of building a house. Poor quality materials used. Contractors not finishing the houses that they built are a major news in Malaysia. Since all the bungalows in my areas are self built, we talked to most of our neighbours. The most important criteria of a contractor is their track record. Try to talk to the owners of the houses that they have built before. Ask the contractor about their current projects. Go and see their work yourself. With my house plans, i managed to get five quotations ranging from RM500,000 to RM300,000. As usual, you tend to choose the contractor with the lowest tender quotation. A lot of things came out in my mind. What if he used low quality materials. I managed to talk to the owner of a house he recently built. We are now best friends. We got good feedback of the contractor from my friend. My architect had a long knew the father of the contractor and he highly recommended the contractor. I am quite lucky at that time. My contractor usually built housing projects with 50 to 100 houses. During that time, he doesn't have any projects. In the end, I choose him to build our house. It took one year in total (even though in the aggreement it should take 9 months only). My house is completed now. No regrets.