For self-managed HOA and condo boards · Minnesota
Your three bids are rarely for the same job.
The low one usually left something out. We read contractor bids for a living, on the association's side of the table. Send us the bids your board collected; you get a written report on what each one includes, skips, and gets wrong, then a call with your board. Paid only by your association. Never by a contractor.
Reviews from $495, in writing before anything starts · Written report in 5 to 10 business days once your documents are in · Nothing is binding until you approve the fee
| Line item | Bid A | Bid B | Bid C |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tear-off & haul-off | incl. | silent | incl. |
| Permits | incl. | incl. | by owner |
| Deck replacement | $95/sheet | allowance | silent |
| Workmanship warranty | 10 yr | 2 yr | 5 yr |
| Quoted total | $241,900 | $212,400 | $228,750 |
Six-figure decisions, made at a kitchen table.
A roof, a siding project, or a parking lot is often the largest contract an association ever signs, and in a self-managed community nobody on the board's side of the table does this for a living.
The bids arrive and they do not line up. One includes tear-off; one is silent. One carries a $20,000 placeholder for rotten roof decking, the wood under the shingles; one prices it per sheet; one mentions neither. That is why bids for the same job routinely land 10 to 30 percent apart: usually not because one contractor is cheaper, but because they are not quoting the same project. From the outside, you cannot tell.
The money follows the gaps. Change orders on a typical project average 8 to 14 percent of contract value; where the scope was settled before signing, 4 to 5 percent. On a $200,000 roof that is $16,000 to $28,000 against $8,000 to $10,000, assessed to your neighbors either way. The difference is decided before anyone picks up a pen.
01 · What you get
A written report you can attach to the minutes.
Eight things, each with a written finding, not a checkbox. The report runs 8 to 15 pages, with a one-page summary a board member can read in five minutes. Then a live call with your board to walk through it.
- Are they bidding the same job? A scope matrix: one row per work item, one column per bidder. Where one bid is silent, we say so. Silence is not inclusion. We check first for the four items most often left out quietly: mobilization (getting crews and equipment to the site), haul-off, permits, and protection of your property.
- Does the math hold? Quantity times unit price on every line, and quantities compared across bidders. If one roofer measured 42,000 square feet and another 51,000, someone is wrong, and you pay either way.
- What are you actually buying? Every exclusion in plain English, with a dollar figure on what each one could cost you. Every allowance modeled as if it gets used up: the realistic total, not the cover-page total.
- License, insurance, bond. We look up each bidder's Minnesota license, read the insurance certificate they gave you, and note whether a bond is offered (a third party's guarantee that the job gets finished and the subs get paid). A records check, not a prediction of performance.
- Deposit and payment terms. How much money moves before any work does, whether payments follow finished work or the calendar, and what is held back until the end.
- Warranty, untangled. Workmanship versus manufacturer. Thirty-year shingles are not a thirty-year warranty. How long, who registers it, what voids it.
- Where the change orders will come from. Vague lines, unpriced unknowns, the "unforeseen conditions" clause, and whether the price of extra work is set before you sign. After you sign, the leverage is gone.
- Questions to send each bidder, and what to ask their references, written out. Specific to their bid. Not "were your customers happy," but "did the final invoice match the contract, and if not, why."
Then a 30 to 45 minute board call, with written notes for the minutes, and a one-page board memo for any owner who asks why the board hired a reviewer.
02 · How it works
Four steps, with the dates in writing.
- Tell us about the project. Use the form below. We reply within one business day. For projects under $1 million the fee is the published number; over $1 million we quote a flat fee after a short scoping exchange. The agreement, short and in plain English, and the one-page list of what to send follow once our conflicts check is complete, usually in the same reply. Nothing starts until the fee and the payment schedule are agreed in writing.
- Send the bids. Upload them to a private folder restricted to your board's named emails. Anything missing is flagged within one business day. The clock starts when the set is complete.
- Get the report. Under $50,000: 5 business days. $50,000 to $250,000: 5 to 7 business days. Larger projects: 7 to 10 business days. Rush (48 to 72 hours, +50%) on projects under $250,000, when the calendar allows.
- Walk through it with your board. A call within 5 business days of delivery, scheduled around your meeting, by video or phone, evenings and weekends included. Then the board votes. We don't.
03 · Pricing
Flat fees. Published. Agreed in writing before we start.
Fees are keyed to project size because the review work scales with it. Never hourly. Never a percentage of the project. You get the number in writing before the board votes on it, and that is the number.
| The Review · project size | Flat fee |
|---|---|
| Under $50,000 | $495 |
| $50,000 to $250,000 | $1,295 |
| $250,000 to $1 million | $3,450 |
| Over $1 million | Custom, from $7,450 |
Report-only options from $295.
The Review includes the written report, a live board call, and a one-page board memo.
Project size is the lowest complete bid in hand, or your budget if bids are still coming.
Read a sample report first · Request a review
Change orders on a typical project average 8 to 14 percent of contract value; where the scope was settled before signing, 4 to 5 percent. On the $200,000 roof above, that difference is $8,000 to $18,000, and the Review is $1,295. On a $500,000 roof it is $20,000 to $45,000 against $3,450: about $35 a door in a 100-unit community voting on a $5,000-a-door project. We cannot promise you will avoid the exposure. We can show you where it is before you sign.
The Board Partner Plan: $395 a month on a 12-month plan, or $3,950 a year.
For boards with more than one project coming, or that want someone construction-literate on call all year.
- Two bid reviews a year on projects up to $250,000; larger projects at a reduced flat fee. Unused reviews do not carry over.
- Bid and vendor questions answered in writing within 2 business days. Reasonable use: questions, not day-to-day project management.
- A template library: bid requests, clarification letters, award and non-award letters.
- One planning call a year, before budget season.
The guarantee.
The fee is flat and agreed in writing before work begins. If the review surfaces nothing actionable — no scope gaps, math errors, or contract red flags worth at least the fee — we say so in writing and refund 50%. That outcome is a finding too, and one the treasurer can put in the minutes.
04 · Independence
Paid only by the association. Never by a contractor.
Every contractor and supplier at your table earns more when your association spends more. We earn the same whichever bid wins, and the same if the project does not proceed at all. The words below go into every engagement letter and onto page one of every report.
Our Independence Policy
True Bid Advisory is paid only by the association. We accept no referral fees, commissions, gifts, or anything of value from any contractor, vendor, supplier, or manufacturer, before, during, or after a review. True Bid Advisory does no construction work, on your project or any other: it does not bid as a contractor, perform, manage, or broker construction, and it has no stake in which bidder your board selects or whether the project proceeds at all. Any relationship with a bidder on your project is disclosed in writing before work begins, or we decline the engagement. Your documents stay confidential. Our only product is an honest reading of the documents in front of us.
— Evan Swenson and Andy Dill, Members, True Bid Advisory LLC
For the minutes
The Board engaged True Bid Advisory LLC, an independent reviewer compensated solely by the Association, to review the bids received for the [project] before award.
05 · Who we are
Two project managers who read bids all day.
True Bid Advisory is Evan Swenson and Andy Dill, two Minnesota construction project managers who work on the association's side of the table: we run the bid process and manage the project for community associations. We do not do the work and never will. Roofs, siding, paving, concrete, painting, storm repair. Between us we have read hundreds of contractor bids and sat through the meetings where the number gets voted on. Self-managed boards do the same job with nobody in that seat. We started True Bid to sit in it, one project at a time. Our day jobs are separate from True Bid, and we never take a project connected to them.
We review documents. We do not inspect buildings or pick your contractor. A sample report is available on request through either form on this page.
06 · Free checklist
The 10-Point Bid Red-Flag Checklist, free.
General education from reading bids, not legal or insurance advice; confirm with your attorney and insurance agent.
The ten places we look first on every bid set. The list is below; by email you get the printable one-page version with a column for each bidder, so you can score every bid tonight, before you hire anyone, including us. If every item checks out, you may not need us.
- Tear-off and disposal are not in the bid. Look for "remove," "tear-off," "haul-off," or "dumpster." If a roofing or siding bid is silent on getting rid of the old material, assume it is not included, and the low number is not low anymore.
- One bid is per building; another is for the whole project. Say Bidder A quotes $34,000 per building and Bidder B quotes $395,000 for the project; with 12 buildings, Bidder A is $408,000. Multiply it out yourself, and ask which figure the contract will use.
- An allowance with no unit price. "Roof deck replacement allowance: $5,000" means nothing until you know the price per sheet, who decides how many sheets, and what happens the day the allowance runs out.
Show all ten
- Permits are missing or marked "by owner." Someone pulls the permit and someone pays the fee. If the bid doesn't say the contractor will, assume it is you: the cost and the delay.
- No certificate of insurance, or the wrong one. Ask every bidder for a current certificate showing general liability (with the association named as additional insured) and workers' compensation; your insurance agent can tell you the exact wording to ask for. A bidder who cannot produce one in a day is telling you something.
- Payment runs ahead of the work. A 50 percent deposit on a $400,000 roof is a $200,000 loan to the contractor before a single shingle moves. Payments should follow work actually completed, not dates on a calendar, with something held back until the job is done.
- No lien waivers. Unpaid subcontractors and suppliers can put a lien on the property even after the association has paid the contractor in full. Each payment should be traded for a signed lien waiver that covers it, from the contractor and the subs and suppliers behind them.
- The warranty is just a word. "Thirty-year shingles" is the manufacturer's warranty on materials. Ask how many years the contractor stands behind the installation, in writing, and whether this contractor qualifies for the manufacturer's warranty being advertised.
- The unit prices don't multiply. Check three lines, quantity times unit price. If one is off, check them all. One miss is a typo; three is a pattern, and either way it is a question to put in writing.
- The exclusions are on the last page. In smaller type, that is where "excludes rotten decking, excludes permit fees" lives. On a 30-year-old roof that is not an exclusion, it is a change order with the date left blank. Read the exclusions before you read the price.
If your bids trip three or more of these, that is what the review is for. Request a review
07 · FAQ
Questions a treasurer would ask.
We already have three bids. Why pay someone to read them?
Because three bids are rarely three prices for the same job. One includes tear-off, one carries an allowance, one is silent on permits. The review tells you what each one includes, what it leaves out, and what the realistic total is once allowances and exclusions are counted. It turns three prices into one comparison.
We already picked a contractor. Is a review still useful?
Yes, if you have not signed. A single bid still has a scope, allowances, exclusions, a deposit schedule, a warranty, and a change-order clause; the review checks all of them and writes out the questions to settle before signing. What you lose with one bid is the comparison. If there is time to get a second bid, the report's questions are a good basis for asking.
Our roofer already walked us through the bid. Why pay you?
Because the roofer is paid when you pick them; we are paid the same whichever bid wins. Their walkthrough is honest from where they sit; it is also one bid, explained by the person who wrote it. We read all the bids against each other and have no stake in who wins.
Do you get anything from the contractors?
No. Not a referral fee, a gift, a discount, or a lunch. The association pays us and nobody else does. That is the whole premise of the business, and it is written into every engagement letter. We keep no list of preferred vendors. If either of us has any relationship with a bidder on your project, we disclose it in writing before work begins or we decline the job.
Will you tell us which bid to take?
No. The report shows the board, bid by bid, what is included, what is excluded, where the math breaks, and what to ask, with the red flags ranked by dollar exposure rather than by count. The decision, and the credit for making it well, stays with the board. If bidders revise their numbers after your questions, we can review the revised set; that is a separate, smaller flat fee, quoted with the original.
Are you engineers, inspectors, or lawyers?
No. We review the documents you send: the bids, whatever you sent the bidders to price, the insurance certificates they provided, and the public license record. We do not visit the site, measure the roof, test anything, or offer engineering, legal, accounting, or reserve-study opinions. When a project needs an engineer or an attorney, the report says so plainly. That flag alone is sometimes worth the fee.
Do you guarantee we will save money?
No, and be careful with anyone who does. What we show is exposure: what the low bid left out, what the allowances could become, where the change orders will come from. Whether the board avoids it depends on what the board does next.
What if you find nothing?
We say so in writing and refund half the fee. The fee is flat and agreed before work starts; if the review surfaces nothing actionable — no scope gaps, math errors, or contract red flags worth at least the fee — you get 50% back. When that happens, "an independent review of the bids as submitted surfaced no material scope gaps, math errors, or contract red flags" is a fair sentence to have in the minutes before a special assessment.
The vote is in three weeks. Is it too late?
Usually not. After the bids are in and before the vote is when this works. From the form to the board call is typically two to three weeks on a $50,000 to $250,000 project: one business day for the fee in writing, 5 to 7 business days for the report once your documents are in, and the call scheduled around your meeting. Under $50,000 the report takes 5 business days, and rush (48 to 72 hours, +50%) is available on projects under $250,000 when the calendar allows. Above $250,000 the report takes 7 to 10 business days, so send those bids at least four weeks before the vote. Put the vote date on the form and we work backward from it.
Who sees our documents?
Your files sit in a private folder restricted to your board's named emails. They are never shared with a bidder or any other person. The only third parties that touch them are the document-storage and AI tools we work in, under their business terms, and the engagement letter binds us to confidentiality. We never publish anything about your association. We use AI tools to extract and tabulate bid data; every figure and finding in a report is checked by one of us against the source document before it goes out. The details are in our privacy notice.
Can we see a sample report before we decide?
Yes. A sample report is available on request: tick the box on either form and it comes with our reply.
08 · Request a review
Before the board votes.
Tell us the basics. We reply within one business day. Under $1 million the fee is the published number; over $1 million we quote a flat fee after a short scoping exchange. The agreement and the one-page list of what to send follow once our conflicts check is complete, usually in the same reply, with the sample report if you ask for it. No sales call. No phone tag.