Construction Estimators are you seeing a precipitous drop off of RFP's?

abrogate

abrogate

misanthrope
Joined
Nov 13, 2020
Member Number
3050
Messages
398
Loc
St Louis MO metro
I have been estimating for a small construction firm since July '22. Don't want to post much of the details about work, but we are in the civil field in the St Louis MO area and do work in about a two hour radius from STL in both MO and IL. I have been worried over the last few years what is coming. In August '24 I started logging all my jobs in a personal spreadsheet so I can better organize info the way I want without any input or oversite from my employer. I know that isn't a huge data set, but its what I have to work with. The amount of RFP's has completely plummeted this year. Probably half the jobs we are getting RFP's for aren't even worth the time spent downloading the drawings and extracting the civil docs. May has been really alarming for me. May 2024: 27 RFP's. May 2025: 15 RFP's. May 2026: 7 RFP's. Almost half of those didn't even include civil work, so its more like 4. Most jobs have been smaller and many of them are remodels of existing structures or repairs to existing infrastructure. I know construction ebbs and flows, but I am going to have to find another field soon.

Is anyone else seeing this trend in your fields? Is this just a local anomaly?
 
abrogate said:
I have been estimating for a small construction firm since July '22. Don't want to post much of the details about work, but we are in the civil field in the St Louis MO area and do work in about a two hour radius from STL in both MO and IL. I have been worried over the last few years what is coming. In August '24 I started logging all my jobs in a personal spreadsheet so I can better organize info the way I want without any input or oversite from my employer. I know that isn't a huge data set, but its what I have to work with. The amount of RFP's has completely plummeted this year. Probably half the jobs we are getting RFP's for aren't even worth the time spent downloading the drawings and extracting the civil docs. May has been really alarming for me. May 2024: 27 RFP's. May 2025: 15 RFP's. May 2026: 7 RFP's. Almost half of those didn't even include civil work, so its more like 4. Most jobs have been smaller and many of them are remodels of existing structures or repairs to existing infrastructure. I know construction ebbs and flows, but I am going to have to find another field soon.

Is anyone else seeing this trend in your fields? Is this just a local anomaly?
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I just got an estimate for $40k for just the concrete for a 30x40 garage. Prices to build are insane.
 
posford said:
I just got an estimate for $40k for just the concrete for a 30x40 garage. Prices to build are insane.
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I paid $48k(?) For 32x40. 4" slab @4000psi and three 6" haunches at 6000psi.

This was 2024.
 
Stuff is still busy here. Not 2022 busy, but busy enough.
With the newer code change, it's starting to cost way more to build than it does to renovate.
 
I'm on the civil consulting side. The first part of the year was a record for us and I won more work in the first three months than we did all of last year. The past two months it has really dropped off though.
 
I just got a price of over $1200/sq. Ft. For fire apparatus building with a couple offices, work out area and small equipment repair shop. Nothing super fancy in the building, but costs are insane.
 
woods said:
I paid $48k(?) For 32x40. 4" slab @4000psi and three 6" haunches at 6000psi.

This was 2024.
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With the dirt work I hope. I got a number of $11k for just a slab. The $40k is frost walls and slab.
 
Im in heavy commercial construction (building envelope) as an OM. We were estimating like crazy until the last 2 weeks and it’s died down now. All I see in this corner of the world is civil work out there. To the point where I’ve contemplated dusting off a resume and chasing the big civil guys. It’s interesting to hear kind of the opposite going in STL.
 
posford said:
With the dirt work I hope. I got a number of $11k for just a slab. The $40k is frost walls and slab.
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$48k for the guys pouring the slab, 8' frost walls, and haunches.

That pumper truck was $1300/hr.
 
We were focusing a lot on solar farms over the last several years and now they have completely stopped. We had several that were 400 and up to 750 acre sites. Gone completely. They seemed to be trying to beat tariff changes. I was talking with one of the civil engineers on a 99 Megawatt solar farm we were involved in and they had to order 220,000 panels before the tariff changes ****ed the job up. Im not sure if the 750 acre site even started. Price increases are definitely screwing **** up.
 
The stuff we work on has been in the works for years all ready. It takes a while for things to catch up with us. Last year was our biggest year ever. This year looks to bet that.
 
Aren't
abrogate said:
We were focusing a lot on solar farms over the last several years and now they have completely stopped. We had several that were 400 and up to 750 acre sites. Gone completely. They seemed to be trying to beat tariff changes. I was talking with one of the civil engineers on a 99 Megawatt solar farm we were involved in and they had to order 220,000 panels before the tariff changes ****ed the job up. Im not sure if the 750 acre site even started. Price increases are definitely screwing **** up.
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Aren't they also shutting off the subsidies for them ? Those and wind farms I thought.
 
I was in construction in 2007 when the fed hiked the rate, we hit a wall. Earthmoving for big subdivisions
I was in construction again for hikes in summer of 2023, hit a wall, 60 plus hours to 53 hour weeks almost immediately. Worked for a heavy equipment company that had equipment used in residential, and commercial construction and mining.

In 2022 framing crews were working Sundays. 2023 was some Saturdays. Now they're just scarce altogether

I spent 2024 and half of 2025 remodeling my house, for the most part, subs were hungry. Except roofers, **** those guys :laughing:

A year later 2 of my neighbors own roofing companies and I know they're hurting. One substantially downgraded both of his vehicles, the other has mentioned he's hurting for work.

I'm on a lot of big solar fields here, and what I've heard is that they aren't viable without subsidies, and once the work that's already funded is done, those are done too

The dealer I work for is aggressive and grabbing market share, but even then, we can see that customers are hurting. Now big companies from Phoenix 100 miles away are setting up shop here, not because there's extra work, they're trying to underbid what work is here.

they don't call it a recession till after it's started. I think it's gonna get worse with AI. Even if it isn't all that big of a deal, corps will use it to cut headcount, those left behind will pick up the slack in a tough job market

I'm OK because I can go back to mining, copper is high, and my nut is low.



I watch "the hooptie index" burnt out headlights, windows taped up, mismatched tires, broken down on the side of the road. 2021-24 cars were well taken care of, fresh from new car dealer, or freshly reconditioned at used car dealer
 
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I worked as a PM for Solar and Roofing for 3 years, having quit 3 years ago. CA killed the Solar industry with NEM3 as we all predicted.

In roofing I was forced to use a Sub that I HATED everything about, and I predicted that in 3 years the company would go under so I went back to Propane as an Operations Manager.

The company went under in 2. The GM of over 30 Years just finally quit. They got seized, and there are 5 people left from a full staff of 30 when I was there.

The trades are in a weird place right now, all across the board.
 
We're busy, but not begging for overtime busy.

We told a massive GC to suck a ****, half our work but 100% of the headache. We have 4 more GC's filling in the schedule, but slowly. Multi-million $ ski shacks take a little while to get out of the ground. Last duplex I did was 2 years getting out of the ground, 2.5 more years from framing to trim.

Pretty sure a few other electrical contractors will be hurting soon. One of them undercut a house for less than our parts cost. Our bid was roughly $800k for the house, with $460k being material. They came in at $420k all in. Thinking they missed a few details, and glossed over the "no change orders unless they're at the owners request" in the contract. They'll try and make it up in changes, be lucky to not be bankrupt when that fails.
 
Small time high end residential new construction elec contractor here.. the news and **** like this always says it’s slowing down, but it never actually slows down. Got 3 project to bid in my inbox now and more temps to set than I physically have until the power company unhooks a few. #endlesscycleofsuck
 
We are not as busy as 21-23 but just as busy at pre covid times. Things have doubled or tripled in cost though since Covid so a million or two dollar project is a remodel not a new building. We saw a lot more larger projects with a few guys bidding and now I’m seeing smaller projects and more guys bidding them. Hasn’t really effected us though but it will be interesting to see how things develop over the next two to four years. They still seem to be throwing up data centers and apartments constantly though every time I drive around there’s another one popping up.
 
Fullsize80cherokee said:
Small time high end residential new construction elec contractor here.. the news and **** like this always says it’s slowing down, but it never actually slows down. Got 3 project to bid in my inbox now and more temps to set than I physically have until the power company unhooks a few. #endlesscycleofsuck
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Build more temps.... :flipoff2:

I bet we have 30 of them out there, and 15 guys to do the resi stuff.
 
Very good news from a local GC friend tonight that he’s too busy for the next 2 months to do a little work here and sent me to a handyman for a couple Solatubes.

I’m not laddering up or crawling through the attic for a couple hundred bucks especially when he lives in the neighborhood. I’d rather help his family because I can, and I just don’t want to do it.

Never imagined when I was in my 20s that I would be able to have others do **** I didn’t want to do now.

EDIT: The four asterisks are the 4-letter word for POOP that starts with an S..

Just wanted to clear that up that I said $HIT. POOP. TERDS.
 
arse_sidewards said:
I hope it crashes and burns. I need a cheap backhoe and I'm gonna need cheap concrete shortly thereafter.
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