RealDream vs a Typical North Shore General Contractor

Cost-plus versus fixed-price, and why this is the question that matters most

Cost-plus is the standard pricing model in residential renovation, on the North Shore and everywhere else. The contractor bills for actual material cost, actual labour cost, and a markup on top, usually 15 to 25 percent. The client sees a rough estimate up front, and the real number settles out over the course of the project as invoices come in.

Cost-plus is not a scam and plenty of reputable North Shore contractors use it honestly. It shifts risk toward the client, though. If a wall opens up and the framing behind it needs more work than expected, that cost passes through to the client's bill directly, on top of the agreed markup. The contractor's incentive to control cost is weaker than it would be under a fixed price, since a higher final cost also means a higher dollar amount of markup.

RealDream quotes fixed-price. The number in the signed contract is built from a detailed scope document, with material selections locked and a pre-construction assessment done specifically to catch the conditions that would otherwise turn into a change order. That assessment costs us time and money before the contract is signed, and it is the reason we can hold a number rather than estimate one.

Fixed-price is not free of surprises. It shifts where the risk sits. On a fixed-price contract, the contractor absorbs the cost of most conditions that were reasonably discoverable, and the client absorbs the cost of scope changes they choose to make mid-project. Ask any contractor directly which model they use, and ask what happens, in writing, if hidden conditions turn up behind a wall. The answer tells you more about the relationship you are entering than anything else in the sales conversation.

Who pulls the permit, and why that is not a small detail

In the City and District of North Vancouver, and in West Vancouver, a building permit can be pulled by the homeowner or by the contractor, and the answer changes who is legally responsible for the work meeting code. Some general contractors have the homeowner pull the permit personally, which can lower the contractor's insurance exposure and paperwork, but it also means the homeowner is the one whose name is on the file if an inspection fails or a stop-work order gets issued.

RealDream pulls permits under the company for the work we build, which keeps code compliance and inspection responsibility with the party actually doing the construction. Ask any contractor directly who applies for the permit, whose name is on it, and what happens if an inspector flags something. A contractor who is vague about this, or who wants the homeowner's name on the permit for a project the contractor is managing day to day, is worth a second question before signing.

Warranty: get it in writing, and read what it actually covers

Every renovation contractor says they stand behind their work. The useful question is what that sentence means in a written contract, because verbal warranties are worth exactly as much as the relationship survives.

A written warranty should specify a term in years, name which parts of the work it covers (workmanship, specific systems, materials passed through from a manufacturer), and say plainly what triggers a service call versus what falls back on a manufacturer's own warranty for an appliance or a fixture. RealDream provides written warranty terms as part of every signed contract, specific to the scope of that project, so the coverage is not a verbal promise made during the sales meeting and forgotten by the time an issue comes up two years later.

When comparing quotes, ask each contractor for their warranty in writing before you sign, not after. A contractor confident in their work will hand it over without hesitation. One who hedges, or offers only a general statement about being a licensed and insured company, is telling you something about how that conversation will go if a problem shows up after the invoice is paid.

In-house trades versus subcontracted trades: neither is automatically better

Some North Shore contractors employ core trades like plumbing and electrical directly, which can tighten scheduling since those crews report to the same company rather than juggling other jobs. Others, RealDream included, manage a network of subcontracted trades through a dedicated project manager with regular site presence.

The subcontracted model trades some scheduling certainty for flexibility: a subcontractor network can scale up or down with project demand and bring in specialists, structural steel, elevator work, commercial-grade ventilation, that an in-house team of two or three trades could never carry on payroll year-round. Neither model is inherently better. What matters is whether the trades on your specific job are managed with daily oversight, and whether the person managing them answers directly to the company you signed with rather than functioning as a middleman between you and a loose collection of subcontractors.

Ask any contractor directly which trades are employees and which are subcontracted, and ask who is physically on site day to day managing the work. The answer to the second question matters more than the answer to the first.

Site conditions the North Shore adds to every job

Whatever contractor a homeowner chooses, the North Shore itself adds the same set of variables to nearly every renovation: steep lots that complicate excavation and access, tree protection bylaws in both the City and District of North Vancouver that govern what can be removed near a construction footprint, heavy seasonal rain that turns drainage from a nice-to-have into a real line item, and older housing stock, much of it from the 1960s through the 1980s, that reliably hides outdated wiring, plumbing, or insulation behind a wall that looked fine at the walkthrough.

A contractor's familiarity with these local conditions shows up less in the sales pitch and more in the pre-construction assessment: whether they walked the lot and checked slope and drainage before quoting, whether they flagged the tree bylaw before design rather than after a permit comment, and whether the scope document names a contingency for the hidden conditions this housing stock is known to produce. Ask to see how a prospective contractor handled these on a recent, comparable North Shore project, and ask for a reference you can actually call.

What to actually ask when comparing quotes

Every quote comparison should cover the same ground regardless of which two (or three, or five) contractors are in the running. Pricing model: fixed-price or cost-plus, and what happens in writing if hidden conditions appear. Permit responsibility: whose name is on the permit and who answers to the inspector. Warranty: a written term, in years, naming what is covered. Trade structure: employees or subcontractors, and who manages them on site day to day. And references: two or three recent North Shore projects you can call, not just photos.

None of these questions require comparing one company by name against another to be useful. They apply to any contractor a homeowner is considering, and a contractor who answers all five clearly, in writing, before a contract is signed is telling you something true about how the rest of the project will go.

Disclosure

This comparison was written by RealDream Contracting, and it describes the general contracting practices we see across the North Shore market rather than naming or citing figures from a specific competitor, since we could not independently verify a specific company's review counts, years in business, or warranty terms well enough to compare them fairly. Contact any contractor you are considering directly, request their pricing model and warranty in writing, and check references before signing.