House flippers screwed me. So I asked pros to quote on a fix.

The lowest quote for simply replacing a showerpan and a glass box that sits on it is $9k. Yikes. WTF is going on here? Other quotes have hit $16k. I’ve seen in the hardware store shower box kits that are like $700. So I am really baffled here. Those kits should be like 1 or 2 ppl working for 1 day, no?

Clearly I am out of touch. So my next thought is, if I am going to spend that kind of serious money, I might as well do a luxury bath extension to the house.

For complex reasons I am looking to avoid doing the work myself, but that idea is not completely off the table. I am thinking if I do the project myself, concrete bags are cheap. Wedi boards and the like come in showerpan kits IIRC, which are not exactly cheap but compared to the quotes by contractors the Wedi board seems quite reasonable. I’ve seen the various videos of YTers discussing in detail how to do it right and how others screw up. Are the crazy quotes from contractors mainly due to labor costs?