<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/d80f6c42-28a8-4004-9065-4a6b5e37d00d/466CB6FC-B1ED-4C85-9B9A-154DE86F0DBF/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=20741445" href="http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=20741445" style="font-size: 11px;">realestate.msn.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=20741445"><H1>10 things contractors won’t tell you</H1></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=20741445"><H2>Learning a few tricks of their trade will help you ensure you get the job done right and at a fair price.</H2></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=20741445"><div align="center"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/realestate.msn.com/img/3F30BF1F-332E-47AC-85F6-9EF8BD85EEBA" alt="10 things contractors won’t tell you (© Goodshoot/Corbis)" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=20741445"><STRONG>1. “My license is laughable.”</STRONG></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=20741445">the <A href="http://www.bbb.org/">Better Business Bureau</A> received 1.1 million inquiries in 2006 from people seeking “reliability reports” on specific contractors — to ensure they were trustworthy enough to hire</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=20741445"><STRONG>2. “Our contract favors me …”</STRONG></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=20741445">Not surprisingly, according to Mark Levine, co-author of “The Big Fix-Up,” a consumer guide to home remodeling, some contractors will set up a schedule that puts your payments ahead of the work. “When (a contractor) has received 50 percent of the money for 25 percent of the work, that’s when he stops showing up as often,” he says.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=20741445"><STRONG>3. “ … so I can take your money and run.”</STRONG></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=20741445">It was an $11,000 job, and he paid $7,000 upfront to the contractors — supposedly for materials. “They brought somebody in to do the preliminary brickwork, then played a duck-and-run game for three months,”</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=20741445"><STRONG>4. “Bargains don’t exist in my world.”</STRONG></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/466CB6FC-B1ED-4C85-9B9A-154DE86F0DBF/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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