For Jim Brown, owning his own home repair and remodeling business didn’t turn out the way he hoped.
Doing paperwork and scheduling was a pain, but an even bigger headache was finding workers who wouldn’t let him and his customers down.
“I got tired of running my own company,” Brown said. “Finding good, reliable workers was tough.”
For the past year, Brown has worked as a field supervisor for a north Denver franchise of Handyman Matters, a rapidly growing home repair business based in Lakewood with 130 locations across the country and in Europe.
John Neunez is in his second year with the company after having worked largely on his own for two decades.
Not only was the competition intense, but he didn’t enjoy being on call constantly and dealing with paperwork.
“I can focus on what I enjoy doing,” he said.
Both Brown and Neunez work for Curt Wolff, a north metro area franchisee of Handyman Matters.
“They may be good craftsmen but not necessarily good businessmen,” Wolff said of former entrepreneurs turned employees.
About two-thirds of the supervisors and workers employed by Handyman Matters franchisees were once in business for themselves, estimates Andy Bell, the company’s founder and president.
As a housing slump causes more people to fix their existing homes as an alternative to buying new, more independent contractors will probably join Brown and Neunez.
The U.S. Department of Commerce reports that spending on new residential construction declined by 18.3 percent last year, its biggest drop since 1993.
Employment among the specialty trade contractors in Colorado has been declining each month since April and since May for new building construction.
Despite that, demand for repairs and remodels remains strong, Wolff said.
A survey of more than 1,000 households by Angie’s List, a contractor-client matching service, found respondents expected to spend $11,250 on repairs and renovations, up 13 percent from 2007.
Americans are expected to spend more than $170 billion in fix-ups and remodels this year. The chief reason: Of the 125 million houses in the U.S., three out of four were built before 1990, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
More of those repairs are going through franchise repair services that give workers background checks and focus on customer service.
Besides Lakewood-based Handyman Matters, among the more active home repair franchises in the metro Denver area are Mr. Handyman and Handyman Connection. Other players include Husbands for Hire, Case Handyman and Home Doctors.
Janet Asbury, a Handyman Matters franchisee for four years in Chicago, was drawn to the business from the world of software after receiving poor customer service for years.
“You are used to great customer service in most industries,” she said. “It wasn’t there in home repairs.”
Bell said when he started the company a decade ago, he faced three competitors with a similar concept. Now he faces 13.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com
