# Is Masonry a Good Field to Be??



## ruskyline (Jun 5, 2015)

Hi everyone, I just landed a job with a masonry subcontractor. They do about 10-20 million/year jobs. 

My question is how much money can a successfully masonry contractor make around Los Angeles area?? Are there any masonry subs who make over +500K a year??

This sounds really stupid I know but I'm really curious. :thumbup:


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## mrcharles (Sep 27, 2011)

ruskyline said:


> Hi everyone, I just landed a job with a masonry subcontractor. They do about 10-20 million/year jobs.
> 
> My question is how much money can a successfully masonry contractor make around Los Angeles area?? Are there any masonry subs who make over +500K a year??
> 
> This sounds really stupid I know but I'm really curious. :thumbup:



If the company you are working for does 20 mill a year 500k would be about the correct income for the owner. This is including whatever salary and bonuses they pay them self. This is only if they are making the correct margins and not buying work.


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## dom-mas (Nov 26, 2011)

No comment about LA because I've never been there and I'm quite happy for it to stay that way, but I've known a few residential bricklayers who as employees doing piece work made $100k or more. Just from TV it seems that the homes in my area are worth between 1/2 and 2/3 of what homes in LA are worth, so if an employee (not many but some) could have the same earning power as someone making $200k or so I would think that a successful masonry contractor in a commercial/ institutional/industrial setting could make $500k...a successful one, an unsuccessful one could loose that in a year.

But get your feet wet before looking too far into the future


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## JBM (Mar 31, 2011)

I would say there are very very few masonry subs who NET 500k a year without being EXTREMELY savvy, extremely sharp, work horses and more often then not somoene in their organization has a degree in business, they have an accountant or top shelf bookeeper, a project manager who has extensive knowledge in masonry or construction management. 

Its not the person who makes the money , its the team he surrounds himself that allows him to make the money. 

If your brain is full of rocks like mine and cant figure out this crap like me, then youll have to settle for what you can make with your hard head and ambition.


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## NYCB (Sep 20, 2010)

I would poop myself if I could even gross 500k a year at this point.

As far as the trade though, if you offer premium work and good customer service then there is no shortage of work.


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## ruskyline (Jun 5, 2015)

Thanks for the response everyone! I'm very excited about this field and I wanna learn all the ins and outs of this business. I'll start by doing estimating and organizing the office on the first couple weeks/months.


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## CJKarl (Nov 21, 2006)

Keep us posted. You are aiming pretty high. But the guys that make the big bucks took/take big risks.


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## fjn (Aug 17, 2011)

Masonry is a beautiful,enduring product that will be in demand for many years to come. It may not be the perfect building material,however,a better one has not been discovered in the last 10,000 years. You can make a good living with a trowel,either working with yourself,a small crew,or a super big company. If big bucks are in your sites,you may want to consider this tack. Save up your nickles,find a good piece of vacant land and construct a beautiful,functional building employing many beautiful masonry details and execute them correctly. This hypothetical building can be of any nature,residential,commercial or for that matter industrial / institutional.

By doing so,you will leverage your talents and the finished product will in essence be a thing of beauty whose value will be computed in a manner much to your advantage. By that I mean,in 99 % of the time,the value will greatly exceed the sum of the parts. Land + bricks and mortar = x amount of value, however,the intrinsic value will be x + dollars.


By using this approach you will be in better control of your destiny insofar as you will first of all take yourself out of the bidding "wars" and use your creativity and masonry skills to your best advantage.


Best of luck on your journey !


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## CJKarl (Nov 21, 2006)

Yup, cream rises.


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## Fancis Casini (Jan 31, 2013)

my 2 cents ...I've been told repeatedly through the years that I'd be better off taking some time off to estimate. I've done it, prepping large estimates pinning 75 pages of prints to the walls/color graphing 5000 block cuts from 14 to 7'' and putting man hours on every part of the job, especially the difficult little to do's that take expertise and patience.

knowing the trade or ''having that person in on the estimating'' and a lawyer on retainer is is key for commercial.

Example The shelton ct boys club a few years back I bid on came to 550,000.....I found numerous mistakes in the plans per the cantilevered elevators / missing or misplaced details/ and mixed up sections.By the time I got done the architect and structural engineer were anxious to hear me call them with more discoveries....They begged me to take the job for 250......and repeatedly called for the plans which had many corrections and notes on them. I walked away....and lost 3 weeks time. When the started the footings I stopped by and walked over to the conc. foreman and asked him if he had the gym wall footing width right and where the detail was. He showed me and it was as I expected wrong...ie they had changed it to carry a 6'' veneer. I said nothing and later drove by to see large piles of block with mortar on them from dismantled cement and glass block walls etc etc.They went bankrupt. Afterwards talking to a few union friends I found out that a Local Large Contractor stood away too, because the same architect caused him to loose his shirt on a school job for the same reasons. I knew his estimator and am related to the G.C. He later called me and asked how much I'd charge on a certain large field stone church that he lost money on....his estimator blamed it on the small stones the parishioners picked and donated....they were on the small side but not the problem....they never added premiums for corners or wall tops and figured in the extra time jointing fall work on small stones! The sq ft price was nearly half what I was charging back then too. As far as the honesty thing and lawyers....keep in mind they [large g.c's] know a 10 or 15 % screwing may still be cheaper for a sub than hiring a lawyer and waiting. Even my buddy with 75 patents had a lawyer on retainer.


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## brunothedog (Sep 8, 2013)

"Is masonry a good field to be in" 
No
If you have too ask, its not for you


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## superseal (Feb 4, 2009)

brunothedog said:


> "Is masonry a good field to be in"
> No
> If you have too ask, its not for you


You're back buddy... Great to see you,... or rather hear you!

Whatcha up to?


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## brunothedog (Sep 8, 2013)

thanks, life gets in the way of having fun every once in a while.


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