Is Public Bidding Even Worth It?

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I feel like public construction bidding, especially small ones are like the minor leagues of construction projects.  The pay is low, the competition is fierce and the chances of making it big are stacked tremdously against you.  Sometimes I wonder if I’m better off trying to sell lemonade on the street corner or perhaps collect tons of aluminum cans and haul them to Michigan on horseback where I can get 5 cents a can for recycling.    

Over the past two years, I swear I’ve bid about thirty of these damn things.  You fill out a bid form that has you basically sign your life away and then go up against eight to twelve other bidders.  With that many bidders is it really worth getting the job?  The low bidder had to have missed something.  And when we are required to submit a bid bond and provide a 100% performance bond, the owner is pretty much assured that they will get their project at the price promised. 

I was recently the low bid on a $360,000 job where ten general contractors provided pricing with bid bonds.  The pricing ranged from $360k to $490k.  $490,000!  All I could think about on my way out of the room was if I screwed up or missed something.  How could someone think this job would cost $490,000 and I thought it would cost $360,000?

As it turns out, I didn’t get awarded the job because they took one of the deductive alternates, in which case I was no longer the low bid.  So I’ll never know if I actually could have performed the work at that price, and maybe that’s a good thing.  

But if there is no money in public bidding why are so many contractors bidding the work?  They must have figured out a way to keep their costs lower.  It’s either that, or they just want to keep money moving through their company and keep some of their employees working.  Either way, its really not the place to be when you’re actually trying to turn a profit. 

I’m trying like heck to get out of the public bidding world, but I just can’t seem to shake it.  Private owners have their buddies and their go-to contractors that may or may not be better. It’s just tough to muscle your way in.