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advice if your buying a round

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matt:
as you will have seen, ive been at this for 3 months or so (you can get the whole story from a diff thread :)

anyways, we decided we needed a little more work

so my mate contacted this old guy, who sold him part of his round 2 years ago, he is slowly retireing

Last month we went around and did the work with him, he introduced us to the customers etc etc (who mostly are retired and OAP, still living in 4 bed detached houses worth 300K), we parted with a little money, and the guy parted with some more of his round, so we were all happy

This week we did the round ourselves for the first time, so i take out the printed out list, address's, names and prices and what gets done :(

the prices were in general real funny, no 2 prices were the same, even though all the houses were :(, some were £5 ranging upto the £9 , the prices differnece was due to some were OAP's (im all for a little break for the OAP's, but a 4 bed detached house for 5 quid, not on your life, i have a little girl to buy Xmas gifts for

so it was my job to go and explain, some were ok and realised the prices were too cheap, others argued that pensions didnt go far etc etc, 1 of them kept me there for 20 mins, in the end i said, its either 8 quid or they dont get done, he said 7 quid for 3 months then it can go up (just enough time for him to find some1 else i thought  ;D), the next day while cleaning the windows of the house nextdoor who pay 9quid, they tell me the couple have just come back from a 3 week cruise on the Orinano (yea they are that poor)

so a word of advice, make sure you see the prices of the jobs, as i could have lost half of the round this week, as it happens i think i only lost 3 (1 of them was a 4 bed with a full conserv at the rear, the whole width of the house all for 8.50  :-[ :P :-/, i only wanted to put 2 quid on the price

STEVE71163:
Hi Matt,
          Thats one of the reasons i would not buy a domestic round. A few years ago a chap that lives near me asked me if i was interested in buying a domestic round from him and i said that i had plenty of work but i may know someone who would. :D When this other guy went to look at this work their was still houses for £5.00 and flats for £2.00  :'( and i said to him it would be better to just canvass for your own work.

Steve Lowe

gibbouk:
had the same problem a few years ago. a mix of prices dirt cheap on some right on a few. it got money coming in to pay the bills but in hindsight it set my business back. i ended up dumping them all and then i started to make money.

matt:
i didnt do bad really, 3 out of about 30 odd

could have been a lot worse

STEVE71163:
Hi Matt,
          I bet most of them know that they have been getting it cheap up to now ;D

Steve Lowe

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