Bid in fall, permit in winter, build in spring

Late August looks like the middle of the building season from a job site. Crews are busy, the schedule is full and nobody wants to talk about marketing. On the homeowner’s side of the table it is the start of something else: the people who will break ground next April are choosing a general contractor between now and the holidays.

A general contractor’s sales calendar runs two seasons ahead of the crew schedule. Here is how we plan the year around that gap.

Why April’s jobs are decided in the fall

Houzz’s 2026 Houzz & Home study, which surveyed more than 20,000 homeowners early this year, found kitchen projects had the longest timelines of any renovation: an average of 9.5 months spent planning and 5.8 months on construction. Additions are not part of that comparison.

So a homeowner who wants to be cooking in a new kitchen next summer is meeting contractors this fall. If your name is not in that first round of meetings, a winter of ads will not put it there.

The National Association of Home Builders’ second-quarter Remodeling Market Index shows why this fall’s bids matter more than usual. Remodelers scored their backlog at 54 and their current rate of leads and inquiries at 51, on a scale where 50 means as many call conditions good as poor. Large projects of $50,000 or more scored 64, down from 75 at the end of 2024. Work is still coming in, but less of it, and the firms that keep their spring full will be the ones who stayed in front of this fall’s planners.

September to November: bid season

These are the months to work the pipeline rather than the ad budget.

• Put a follow-up date on every open bid. A homeowner planning for nine months will not decide in two weeks. Agree when you will check back, then do it.
• Call the architects and designers who send you work. A quarterly update with photos of the last project you built from their drawings keeps your name on their shortlist.
• Ask summer clients for reviews now. Three in four consumers (74%) told BrightLocal’s review survey this year that only reviews from the past three months count with them. A review from July is already aging by the time a February planner reads it.
• Write up the summer’s projects. Each finished addition or whole-house remodel becomes a page with the scope, the timeline and what the permits involved.

Watch the money side of the conversation too. Houzz found that homeowners with budgets above $50,000 spread their funding across sources such as home equity loans (23%) and cash from a home sale (20%). When Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies released its latest remodeling forecast in July, Chris Herbert, quoted in the release, put it plainly: “Until home sales rebound from current low levels, remodeling expenditures are likely to stay at this pace.” A homeowner waiting on a house sale or a loan approval is a lead worth keeping warm, not one to drop.

December to February: deposits, permits and the rules on both

Winter is when contracts get signed and permit applications go in, and a few rules shape how that is sold.

Deposits. In Florida, a contractor who takes more than 10 percent of the contract price as an initial payment on residential work must apply for permits within 30 days and start the work within 90 days after the permits are issued, unless the homeowner agrees in writing to longer. California caps the down payment on a home improvement contract at $1,000 or 10 percent of the contract price, whichever is less. A December deposit on a Florida job means applying for the permit by January, so either the schedule fits or the longer period goes into the contract in writing.

Cancellation. The FTC’s Cooling-Off Rule gives buyers until midnight of the third business day to cancel most sales made at their home, including when they invited the salesperson in, and Saturday counts as a business day. California’s own rule is three business days, or five if the buyer is 65 or older. Year-end “sign by December 31” offers made at the kitchen table have to allow for both.

Permits. CSLB’s consumer guide tells California homeowners to check whether the contract says who will pull the building permits. Say it in the proposal before anyone asks.

This is also when search needs to switch on. Google says screening for Local Services Ads takes three to four weeks on average, so an application for the General contractor category belongs in January, with search campaigns on addition and whole-house terms live by February. In August, Google began moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads, starting with other home service categories; general contractors were not on the first list, so set up as things stand and expect the account to move later.

March to May: build season, and the proof it leaves behind

Once crews are on site, marketing becomes collection:

• A yard sign on every job, with your license number where your state requires it.
• Progress photos for your Business Profile and project pages, taken while the work is visible.
• A review request at every final walkthrough, while the homeowner is standing in the finished room.
• Notes on what each project involved, for the write-up that goes online in the fall.

In the Sun Belt the sequence shifts, since building runs all year and summer heat slows exterior work instead of frost, but the gap between deciding and building stays the same.

A slower market makes the calendar matter more

Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, in the July forecast republished by the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, expects year-over-year growth in renovation and repair spending to slow to just 0.5 percent by the second quarter of next year, with annual spending moving from $517 billion to $519 billion. That is a flat market, not a collapse. In a flat market the work does not disappear; it goes to the contractors homeowners can find and check during the months they are deciding.

What to do this month

• List every conversation from this summer that has not turned into a contract, and give each a follow-up date before October.
• Send review requests to every client whose project finished since June.
• Pick three finished projects and turn each into a page with photos, scope, timeline and permits.
• Check your contract templates against your state’s deposit, permit and cancellation rules before winter signings start.
• Put the Local Services Ads application on the calendar for early January and search campaigns for early February.

The contractor who is busiest next May will be the one who used this fall to stay in front of the people still deciding. Our page for residential general contractors sets out how we plan the year, and our GoHighLevel pipelines are where the bid follow-up dates live.