Owners Rep
Your set of eyes on the bid, before your name goes on it.
Owners rep means I sit on your side of the table for plumbing and mechanical spend. When a contractor hands your manager a proposal, I read it line by line, against 20 years of having written those bids myself. Then I tell you, in writing, what is necessary now, what is necessary but can wait, and what is not necessary at all. I never sell the work I review, so the read has no angle in it.
How it works
Four steps, and the answer is in writing.
1. Send the paper. The bid, the proposal, the camera footage, the due diligence file, plus photos and history where you have them.
2. The read. Remote, or in person with a site walk when the building needs eyes on it.
3. The written answer inside three business days. The bid sorted into the three buckets with the reason on each line that matters, what is missing that will come back as a change order, and what to ask the contractor before anyone signs.
4. The walk through. A short call so your manager can use the report in the room where the bid gets decided.
The work
What falls under owners rep.
Bid review before a cap ex gets approved. Due diligence reads on buildings under consideration. Video inspection reads of camera footage, read by a plumber rather than a salesperson. Sanitary reports and inspection reports. Water conservation and leak work across a property or a portfolio.
Pricing
Prices on the page.
Remote read: $500, plus $250 onboarding per new client. In person reads and site walks: $250 an hour. Video inspection reads: $150 an hour on retainer, $250 an hour one off with a two hour minimum. Retainers at $2,000, $5,000, or $10,000 a month for portfolios that approve spend every month, with an hourly log on every invoice.
Fair to both sides
A straight read helps good contractors too.
Honest contractors lose work every week to padded bids that make every number look the same. A read that sorts necessary from not necessary is what lets a fair bid win on its merits, and plenty of contractors end up respecting the process, because the same standard that cuts padding also confirms good work as good.
The people writing these bids are trying to put food on the table, just like us. The job is to curb the excess, the padding and the lines nobody can explain, not to beat anybody down. Push too hard and you scare away the good contractors, the ones you actually want bidding your work. So the read gets used with restraint and responsibility: firm on the numbers, respectful of the people.
The wall is absolute. I never rep an owner and advise a contractor on the same building or the same deal, and I take no money, no markup, and no referral fees from any contractor I review.
What it is not
Independent means independent.
Owners rep is not a contractor and not a second bid. It is not a sales channel for anyone's repair work, and nothing in the read steers you toward a company. Work that sits outside the water and mechanical lane gets named as outside it, and no markup is taken on it.