THE EBAY auctioning mentality has come to the jobs market, with Building Energy Rating assessors – on a new website – competing for work by bidding the price down.
The website, called www.BerCert.com, has signed up around 400 SEI (Sustainable Energy Ireland) registered BER assessors who are invited to bid on jobs put up on the site by homeowners and estate agents.
BerCert says that 183 jobs have been posted on the site in the past week and 1,792 bids were received. The highest bid was €750 for a four-bed house in Dublin and the lowest was €80 for a one-bed apartment. The average bid is €236 and the average winning bid is €153.
The SEI says that there is no set price for assessments and that homeowners can negotiate with any of the assessors listed on its own site. Many who lost jobs in the building sector had hoped that becoming a BER assessor would give them a new career but it does seem that competition for work is high. The SEI says there is no cap on the number of BER assessors and that it is up to people to check how many assessors are working in their area before they train.
