Question: How do you find good General Contractors or Sub Contractors?
Question: How do you find good General Contractors or Sub Contractors?
Answer: When we were flipping homes, we would know who our competitors were, and we would stop by their sites after they've just bought a property (you can search properties by searching for the LLC), and we would ask them to bid on our projects, or if we lost out to a competitor, we'd stop by a week or two after the closing and meet the GCs at that property.
When we started building "ground-up", I used the same method to find sub-contractors. I've had a Lennar superintendent give me his whole list of subs they used for a local job. Very often, you can simply get a list of subs or recommendations from the supers at job sites; they don't consider it "proprietary" info.
Also, all the MEP trades have to pull their permits, so you can easily find MEP trades just by checking permit history.
“A” players know other “A” players.
One can use a similar method to find architects and engineers. By visiting the building department and pulling plans for any project, you can see the design team on the Title page of the blueprints, which are all public records.
In the residential space, even if you do follow these steps, you are still taking a gamble. However, this approach can improve your odds of finding good General Contractors or Sub Contractors.
Ultimately, you won't know for sure until you use someone, and that's the risk you take. In fact, it was encountering bad GCs that led us to bring construction in-house. Nevertheless, we've found that talent tends to rise to the top, so good professionals don't stay at the lowest level of construction for a long time.