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by jarjoura 3292 days ago
Houzz is interesting because all the photos are of homes with limitless budgets. So you have to set your expectations of your remodel, or just enjoy dreaming big if that's your cup of tea. They're all gorgeous though and they do an amazing job of classifying them. A+ Filters!

Still, I find their professional market section to be a extremely frustrating and they will need to figure out how to scale that down market if they want to continue growing. None of interior designers or "architect/contractors" listed on there would get back to me unless I promised to spent at least $50k on a project with them. Then once I finally found a couple "interested," they were flakey and never got back to me.

I must have exhausted the list on their platform before I moved over to Yelp. Right away I found all the help I needed and everyone was so courteous and followed through. Such a world of difference from the 2 platforms. I do think Yelp's open review platform keeps businesses way more honest and it shows. Any project I start now and I'm asked where I learned about the business, I mention Yelp :).

2 comments

I'm quite the opposite; no experience with Houzz (though I do contract a whole lot of household projects out), didn't even realize they had a marketplace/ads.

When it comes to Yelp, though? I just don't trust them -- no specific reason, just enough "negative" publicity that I'm unsure. The first thing I look at, primary even, are the 'hidden' reviews. They tend to tell a better story than the reviews shown, especially when only a medium-to-small number of reviews are present. That's a bit troubling to me.

To each their own, glad to hear you've found something reliable though -- I suspect locality may make a world of difference, too.

>Houzz is interesting because all the photos are of homes with limitless budgets.

I don't think this is true. There are tons of Ikea kitchens in Houzz. We got a lot of inspiration from Houzz when renovating our apartment. I really like that it has a mix of high-end and Ikea, because many times those high-end ideas can be implemented with cheaper alternatives.

I don't really think IKEA cabinets are that much cheaper if you factor in all the other costs.