3/4 Acre Residential

[krzys666]

Originally Posted by lxarth Um...what? That's jsut above what I charge at 2,000 sq-ft. If I lowball a bid, I would stop doing the work instead of loosing money for a year. I'm still amazed at only $80. Even with a 48". I'm still going to spend an estimated 100 minutes on the job. So bare minimum should be $100 a cut. But even at the price, there is just no way. More realistically, with a 32", It's going to be more like 2.5 hours. To WeekendWarriorLawn...I'm not new to this. But I live in the city, so my lawns are all 2,000 sq-ft. With some, those in the older parts, at a little larger. I don't have the equipment to handle a lawn of this size...but I'm not new to this business (just look at my join date) So you are suggesting I hire someone to help me with this job, and then what? I won't make any money! I'm totally blown away at prices this low, lol. At those prices I'm turning the job down on Monday. I thanks you all for your input, but man-o-man there is no money is that lawn. where are you located? i am in greenwich ct. the area has a lot of extremly rich people. 1 zip code is ranked 25 richest in the nation, the other 5 zip codes the town encompases are all in the top 400 richest in the nation. the town has a total of 67 square miles. .75 acre is a small lawn here (starter home at about 1 million) it should not take any longer then 40 minutes, 2 people. mowing, triming, edging, blowing everything with a 48 belt driven no sulky. with the sulky and a 48 hydro your time would be about 5-10 minutes less. i recomend that you try to get this customer, and customers like this one. we aim for the largest houses around here that are 3+ acres. there is little competion on the large houses as you need larger, better, and more equipment. consider this if it takes 2 60" ztr's to cut a house that is 4 acres. what is your competion? almost none because equipment is expensive 5k for a good used ztr, while a used push mower can be bought for $50.

[FTGUlawncare]

Lawn care business tips

Originally Posted by shadrach If it is .75 acres hasn't been mowed for weeks and needs to be bagged, I don't see it being worth doing for less than 150. Could easily be more, depending on how tall it is. Also, they let it get in that shape so I wouldn't even consider buying a mower to do it unless I had a signed contract for the rest of the season. krzy666 is right try and land the contract big homes are the biggest money makers , i have one that i spend most of the day on and pays well , but i would price it at a double cut unless the customer is looking to sign up with a weekly then i would suck it up and mow it the first time for the normal price , you can make your money back in upsells To touch on the subject about a bigger mower i just picked up a toro SS4235 for my resi jobs and it fits through most gates well and cuts very well ... well worth the investment

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Last edited by FTGUlawncare; 06-24-2012 at 08:29 PM.

[Matther777]

I would have to say get a used riding mower or walk behind with the dimensions of 32" or 36" If the yard has no fence I would say use a 36" but if there is a gate entrance get a 32" as I no for a fact the 32 will just squeeze by in most places. I am not sure what to tell you on the bid I will say that is up to you.

[krzys666]

i would only bid if they wanted weekly cutting. your season with weekly leaf clean ups should take you to mid to late November.

[Steve]

So I just took a look at a customers lawn. As you can tell from the title, it's huge.

My normal jobs are just your average residential lawn around 2,000 sq-ft. With my largest around 8,000.

So all I use is just push mowers. To get this job, I would have to go buy a riding mower, or a larger walk behind.

I'm not opposed to getting a larger mower, as long as I can use it at other jobs.

So if your average jobs are around 2,000 sq ft and your business is set up to service them, this new property at 3/4 of an acre is roughly 32,670 sq ft. That's a lot bigger.

Do you want to scale up and service these size properties or would you rather focus on the smaller ones?

Are you doing this solo or would you need to scale up and add an employee too?

[myblacktruck]

I'm not sure where you located but over here on the right side of Pa your not getting that kinda money. I just bid a job in a real nice development about an acre lot maybe a little bigger with 11 flower beds for 70 a week.When I called back a week later to see if they had any questions they told me I was the most expensive. There was one at 63 and one at like 50. We have a 2 and 1/4 lot we cut we get both 61 inch mowers off and were putting them back on in 22 minutes then almost a 1/2 hour of trimming and 5 minutes to blow and were done