When Wells Fargo came out with the announcement that they were gong to work with Home Depot my first thought was that this wasn't the way it was intended.
Home Depot would have a single contractor for each trade that they "approved" for each store as I recall. The FHA 203k is a "spread the wealth" program intended to lift all ships in the harbor not just one ship in each harbor.
I am still hearing it hasn't worked out the way they thought it would be, by limiting the competition they actually helps a very select few contractors have carte blanc to charge whatever they wanted and eliminated the competition. That actually has hurt the program and had they maintained fair pricing it would have worked (some did btw) but many didn't and it hurt the program in my opinion.
By eliminating the competition it embolden's the one and only to increase their prices arbitrarily knowing there is no competition. So be careful and get competitive bids when you are doing a renovation project, you can certainly use one of the big box stores but let some local contractors in on the bidding and keep them honest.
Not all HD contractors are involved in this practice and to those kudos to you. To the others "shame on you"
Best to obtain several bids to insure you are getting a "fair deal" from your contractor or use a consultant who will help you through that process. We can recommend several in your area. Don't misunderstand me, I love HD and Lowe's just didn't like limiting my contractor base and the result of doing so.
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