PHDC has home repair pricing nailed

Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation (PHDC) sets prices once a year for its low-income homeowner emergency home repairs program (Basic Systems Repair Program, BSRP). Their Work Item Price List includes everything from land clearing and masonry to carpentry, roofing, electrical, plumbing and HVAC. The prices appear to be a good starting point for negotiating with your home improvement contractor (expect to go north a bit, though).

These are prices that Minority Owned Business Enterprise (MBE), Woman-owned Business Enterprise (WBE) and Disabled Owned Business Enterprise contractors work hard to get access to. PHDC has a rigorous contractor qualification program that includes financial, insurance, licensing and registration qualification of its participating contractors, as well as inspection in person of contractors’ previous work used as customer references. The approved contractors get a ‘letter of intent’ from PHDC committing to $50,000-$200,000 worth of work for each program year, and work at each site tends to be well over $1000 per work order, so don’t expect to get the low individual-item rates in this list. These are good base-lines, though.

The prices cut close to the bone and may be too low in many situations, but should serve as a great starting point for homeowners or even businesses looking for a clue in the home repair and/or maintenance estimating labyrinth.