Things You'll Need:
- Paypal account
- FreeLanceConstructionEstimator.net account
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Step 1
A lot off people in this world today are getting taking advantage of by the government, wall street, insurance company's, contractors, and handymen everyday. This niche technic I will teach and give you all the tools needed to have the power to know for sure if your getting a fair deal. Lets start with insurance company's, I was a builder for over 10 years and in 2005 I took a few crews to Florida to help rebuild houses from all the damage they went through from the hurricanes of the 20th century. I remember thinking of how beautiful it was when we first was driving down and getting settled in. But after we started working I started seeing houses everywhere painted in big red paint saying "MY INSURANCE COMPANY DIDN'T COVER MY HOUSE" The truck we was driving had the company name and address on it and so people noticed we was from out of town, Almost everyday I was aproched by homeowners who had money to fix there own house and wanted my company on there job ASAP. One of the jobs I did was the homeowners roof got damaged and he needed to be totally re-framed from damage done after hurricane Wilma, I didn't even get down there till after hurricane katrina by time I got there the mold in the house was so bad we had to demo the hole house. This was a amazing house worth somewhere around 1.5m I asked the guy way he waited so long and he said " I waited for the insurance check that took 9 months to show up and when it did it didn't even cover the materials" At the point of getting me on his job he wasn't waiting any longer to even see what they where going to give him now that his house turned into a total lose he just paid right out of his pocket. Something else I seen a lot of was people getting way over charged by contractors and handymen that not only marked up the prices of the materials but they way over charged for man hours and complete projects. I really felt bad for some of these people because sometimes I was showing up to jobs after they had already be taking advantage of for a lot of money and they had no idea of what materials they had or even still needed. Now what you are about to learn and the tools you are about to be giving will give you the power to protect yourself right at your finger tips. Never find yourself stuck in the same shoes as a lot of people have found themselves. The insurance policy less then real repair cost and or a contractor doubling material cost and or man hr estimates
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Step 2
How to use the tools you are about to learn about, Lets say you want to check to see if the coverage of your insurance policy will indeed cover the complete rebuild and or repair costs if something was to happen and or lets also say that you what to check to see how fair the prices of your contractors materials or to check the man hrs he is charging you for. You would need estimates for that, Now you could call every contractor needed and have them give you estimates. But instead you will just use the same tools they do, you can too have the power of knowing real cost for not only materials but accurate man hours. Most large companies have full time estimators tuned in for the towns they work out of for max results. Small business and handymen do it themselves or freelance it out for about 70% of the cost to employ a estimator or civil engineer because they don't do as many jobs and they have to keep profits as high as they can. I am going to set you up so that you can be your own project manager, So that with a few clicks of the mouse you have a estimator or engineer that is on your side, So you don't have to count on your insurance company or a contractor you never met before to tell you the cost of rebuilding or repairing your house.
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Step 3
The first step you'll need to take is If needed you go to paypal.com and set up a personal or business account so that you can conduct your safe transfers online. Then you will need to set up a project manager account at FreelanceConstructionEstimator.net.(F.C.E) These two website' s will give you both the tools needed to out source construction cost estimate projects to world wide markets and they are both free to sign up for.
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Step 4
log into your project manager account and click on the option create project, you will then have the options to add your Project Title, (Max: 50 characters incl. spaces) Primary Project Category, (Commercial Estimating Engineering Home Design Residential Estimating) Attach a file to the project, (this option lets you upload your TXT,Tiff,Dwg,Pdf GIF files for freelancers to review) Budget Range, (Optional) Preferred Payment Methods, (There is six integrated payment gateway options but at this time they are only offering Safe Transfer Escrow using PayPal.com, This option lets you set up a escrow fund so that you can show your freelancer funds are ready to transfer after he completes the project It also protects both you and the freelancer, Or you can use the Direct Transfer via FreelanceConstructionEstimator.net this option lets you send your freelancer money right from your user account If you send money using this option there is no disputing it after) Allow certified members to bid only, (This option lets only the members who meet there minimum 3 year industry back ground and or collage degree) and Hide All Bids. (This options is so that's no member can see what the other one has bid) After completing all steps relevant to the project click preview project and you will get one last chance to look over your project before posting it to the marketplace, If you are happy with the way every thing looks click submit project and your project will be live for freelancers to start bidding on. Note blueprints are not needed for most homeowner estimates.
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Step 5
You then pick the best freelancer for the job, Award them the project and wait for the award freelancer to accept the job, After both parties agree to both the project scope of work and payment options ( on a per hr, per sq.ft, per job, and per week base) Then its time to set up your escrow fund for the project, This is done by clicking on the Conduct Safe Transfer button that will take you to the page where you select the project name for the awarded job, Then click Transfer this puts the money into escrow and now your freelancer can see from his manage account page that the money is ready for that project and selected for his user account. At this point the only person who can release the money is you (The project manager) and the only people who can cancel this payment is the freelancer and or the (F.C.Es) website Administrator. (the Administrator would step in if a dispute was filed by the project manager or freelancer and he would work with both sides to try to resolve the problem if it can't be resolved after his investigation he would resolve the problem to the best of his abilities)
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Step 6
When the project is complete and your happy with your freelancer, Go to your manage account page you will see the option to Send Payment, If you click that link and confirm your payment it is sent, Then you just completed your frist freelanced project online. The last thing you do is rate and review your freelancer. It is the best way you can thank them for a job well done, Its also a good way to help the next guy out because he can then read all the reviews of the freelancers past clients on the website.
