I don’t do much PW of houses, thinking about being a $99 guy just to fill some down time next spring/summer. Basic pitch: No roofs, no sidewalk, no driveway, no gutters, no window cleaning: 1 story $99, 1.5 story $139, 2 story $179. You supply water and your scheduled on my timeframe. I move nothing. If you wan’t something else done, we will talk about the upcharge.
I really don’t want a lot of houses, I just want to do decks, but I need something else to fill the schedule with. Making plans for the spring. Just got done shoveling some ice and snow.
If you don’t want may houses why charge $99 for them. Charge what your time is worth and I guarantee its not $99 a house
Might be good pocket money but as a professional I know what it costs me to turn a profit and I’d need 10 $99 jobs a day to reach my daily goal.
I started out as the $95 house wash guy to beat the $99 in town. I quickly learned those are not the customers you ever want to work for and typically scrutinize and nitpick your work more than the rest
If you don’t want a lot of volume charge more instead of less… you won’t crash our market and you will get a few tickets like you want but they will actually be profitable.
I washed my first house for $179 and quickly learned my price was too cheap for the quality I provided. For $99 I will bring my trailer over and turn it on for you to hear it. That is about it. If you just want to waste some time and make a little change try flipping cars or furniture, that seems to be big on youtube right now.
Lot of money to be be made at 99 a house, especially if only single story homes. Line up a neighborhood with a minimum of 20 houses and club house for free. One days work for 2 guys.
I don’t agree with this… I remember reading why you prefer condos. Residential like to talk. Good luck going through set up 20 times, washing houses, payments, and best of all at least 30 mini conversations throughout before and after starting the work.
In this thread @florida_condo_cleani explains why he is a “$99 guy”, maybe it will be helpful.
For me the key takeaways were: in his market he has to be a “$99 guy”, he up sells and his average ticket is still 250, he has the necessary equipment to be fast and still average $200/hr.
Imo ( I have no actual pw experience) only you can figure out what works for you in your market - try it an find out. No one else is going to pay your bills.
Why do people seem to forget all this: travel to site and back and finding optimal parking. Set up and tear down. Time to get paid and cash the check if it’s a check. Gas, chem, bagging electrical, actually doing a good job. We are not employees working at the car wash where a car comes in and we wash it in 30 minutes with everything set up. Equipment wear and tear and all the other overhead. I charge a 2 hour minimum for all the reasons above.
I think a lot of people don’t know the true costs of running a business, X amount of houses washed every week doesn’t mean X amount of money in your pocket. Everything you purchase gets deducted from somewhere, that somewhere is from what you charge.
I have never cared what people charge, only that they use good equipment, do good work and don’t screw it up for others. Those that don’t understand how to make money off of 99 houses probably spend way to long washing the house. You won’t make money driving a around town washing 99 buck houses. But, if you line them up and can wash two or three without moving the truck in an hour, that’s the bills an hour. It won’t work for most. You got to have enough contacts where you can call a HOA manager or board member and line up a bunch for a slow day
… There is also equipment wear and tear/maintenance, additional marketing costs, additional time spent on the business(quotes, invoices, accounting etc) and I am sure a few other “costs” I am not even aware of, since I am not running a business yet.
Regardless, there is nothing in the op that would suggest that he doesn’t understand how to run a profitable business, or how to " actually do a good job".
I am not going to share my opinion on why anyone would assume otherwise…
