Safeguard works with banks and mortgage companies to perform field services on properties in the foreclosure process. As part of the expansion, the company added 275 subcontractors in October and now has more than 4,200 workers in its network.
However, Brian Gecewich, assistant vice president of vendor management at Safeguard, said the company faced a few roadblocks in finding and retaining new independent contractors.
“High-cost areas like New England or the west coast are the areas where it’s probably most difficult to retain people, just because of some of the pricing pressures, and the other opportunities for people to do similar work,” Gecewich said.
“The work requires people to physically go out and visit different properties,” Greenbaum added. “That requires you to actually get to the property itself, which obviously requires gas, so, as gas prices start to go up, and they’ve gone up a little bit, that’s a direct cost to us.
“There’s a lot of competition for independent contractors, meaning they can decide to do inspections for us or, conversely, they can decide to be an Uber or Lyft driver, or Grub Hub, all those different opportunities. That competition didn’t really use to exist.”
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