Questions You Should Ask When Hiring an Electrical Contractor

William “Bill” Locantro is the founder and owner of Absolute Electric, an electric site contracting company led by a team with over 100 years of combined experience in the field. Also serving as principal of Paramount Custom Homes, William Locantro has extensive experience in the homebuilding sector. When looking for an electrical contractor, there are a few questions that can help determine how capable and serious a contractor is about the work.

Before you get started with the hiring process, make sure all the prior planning is completed. It’s important to know exactly what needs to be done, and when it needs to be done.

The first and most obvious thing to ask a contractor, electrical or otherwise, is if their licenses and insurance are in order. Any hesitation about answering this question should be a deal-breaker. Furthermore, they should be able to provide other clients as references.

Next, they should be able to tell you how their rates are calculated and how they plan to approach the project. Experienced electrical contractors should know how to create a clear approach to a project and estimate costs accurately.

Finally, take a close look at the numbers in the proposal and how they’re broken down. If you find something that’s missing, you should ask the contractor why it’s missing and whether that will affect the estimate.

Bill Locantro

A resident of Babylon, New York, on south central Long Island, William (Bill) Locantro serves as principal of Paramount Custom Homes in nearby East Moriches. Paramount builds luxury houses that range from traditional Hamptons beachfront retreats to modern residences throughout the greater New York City area. William Locantro’s expertise in the luxury homebuilding sector ranges from overall architectural design to interior decorating. He has successfully overseen the completion of hundreds of Paramount construction projects.

William Locantro concurrently owns and operates Absolute Electric in downtown Manhattan. This independent electrical services contractor employs a staff of highly skilled IBEW Local 3 electricians with more than 100 years of combined experience. Under Mr. Locantro’s direction, Absolute Electric has completed work for a wide range of building owners and property management firms, including Brookfield Financial Properties, Tishman Speyer Properties, Jones Lang LaSalle, RXR Realty, the Empire State Realty Trust, and the Morgans Hotel Group.

Active in his community, Mr. Locantro co-chaired a recent event in Southampton that raised Some $300,000 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. In his free time, he enjoys golf, traveling, and art collecting.

Hamptons Home Prices Mixed over 2018

A homebuilding expert and principal of Paramount Luxury Homes, William “Bill” Locantro is involved in all aspects of home construction and design. William Locantro has supervised the construction of hundreds of projects for Paramount, many of them in the Hamptons communities of Long Island. After a long lull, prices of homes in the Hamptons are bouncing back, according to data from Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

Following an almost two-year decline, the median price for homes in the Hamptons rose around five percent in the third quarter of 2019 over a year earlier. The falling prices were likely due to changes in the federal tax code that capped the deductibility rate of state and local property taxes, which made it more expensive to own property in states with high property taxes such as New York and California.

Sale prices of the most expensive 10 percent of homes continued to drop from 2018, with the median price falling around 11 percent to $3.5 million. As the inventory of homes continues to rise, prices may begin to align with buyer expectations, leading to increased sales in the coming years.