Thoughts on Contractor Review Sites

You will find Bryant Renovations on some contractor/renovator review sites like Houzz, HomeStars, Yelp, etc.  We once actively participated in them including buying exposure on them.  We have stopped spending money on them because they do not act in the interest of homeowners or renovators.  Their only interest is to make money off their renovator clients.  This is to be expected but we no longer feel it is in the homeowners’ or our interest to waste money on them. 

We would rather keep your renovation costs down and concentrate on good work than send money to review sites that are masquerading as a service to help you find good renovators.  When you use these lead generation aggregator sites you get a very distorted picture of who is good and who is not.  They are set up so that you are quickly directed to a renovator paid listing on their site.  Some listings will indicate this, but you often do not know that you have been manipulated.  The more that renovators pay these review sites the more they are boosted in the review sites’ standings to make them look to be a good renovator.  As a result, you are not getting a full picture of what renovators are available in Toronto and what their true skills are.

 An interesting note, the Better Business Bureau gives HomeStars, one of Toronto’s favourites only a “C” grade.