Builders are in the business of building and selling houses. Some build one or two a year... some build one every 5 years... others roll out thousands of new homes per year. Regardless of their model, they are in the business to sell a house. They want to spend as little as possible and make as much as possible. You giving away a prewire will set an expectation that will now be passed on to every other bidder on a particular floorplan by that particular builder.
Here in Washington the electrical companies have pretty much taken over the production home business. Since they make money on the electrical portion, they GIVE AWAY the low voltage part. This guarantees that they own the whole wiring job and they have first contact to sell AVAD products to their customers. Its gone to this... it ain't gonna change and I've wasted too much time bitching about it... now I wait for sparky to get in over his head and sell our superior retrofitting skills along with actual system design skills that the customer has obviously not been exposed to yet.
Actually some of these companies bought low voltage divisions (companies like mine) and now are very competent competition. The landscape is full of people all looking for the same piece of pie and as other threads here indicate... you better change your business model to accomodate this or die. Competing with a large electrical firm that gives away what you do just so you can get to talk to one of every five home buyers (my experience is along these lines... perhaps others are different), while there is the guarantee that since they did the electrical they will also try to sell gear to the client... is bound to fail. Also remember that a customer moving in usually has some reason to call the electrician before they have a need for you.
We have hooked up with a good bunch of the custom builders... guys who are used to working with a lot of subs and like working with us. Guys who at least sit us down with every client they build a home for. We also have our own group of electricians we like to work with... guys we try to help sell lighting and generators for and most importantly... leave what we do to us. Find a few of these and get them bought in on the job with you.
Whatever you decide to do... abandon this plan. Good luck to you!
