It's already hard to choose a general contractor to work on one of your projects and what more if there are so many of them in your area.
How do you choose from a large group of people providing the exact same services? Find out why by reading the article.
Referrals The first thing you need to do before hiring a general contractor is asking some people who have actually hired one.
Personal referrals are almost always reliable since you can even ask them to show you the completed work the contractor has done for them in the past.
You can also ask other people any problems they have encountered on their previous contractors.
Credentials are Important Once you are done with finding certain companies through referrals, you can now then verify if the contractor has all the necessary credentials to operate their business.
You can verify their credentials by phone calls, visiting their office or even browsing their company's website.
Make sure to check thoroughly if the said contractors have all the required licenses and affiliations from certain organizations.
It might be a good idea to look for a contractor that went an extra mile just to get additional certifications since this sometimes determines the rigorous training the contractor went through before starting to offer his or her service.
Interview candidates Now you are done with the initial phase of choosing your general contractor.
The next thing you need to do is choose those contractors that have good credentials and schedule an interview.
You can ask questions regarding the job and see how each contractor answers the following questions.
It will also show how confident they are working on the project you are offering.
It must not be a one way communication where you as the client always ask questions.
Reliable contractors should also ask questions in order to have a brief idea what the project is about or to build rapport between the client and the contractor themselves.
References Should Be Available After the interview is done, it might be best if you can ask the general contractor with some references.
They can either show you their portfolios of before and after work or they can refer you to some of their clients and you can call them to ask how about the performance and quality of work the contractor did for them.
If you are not satisfied with just calling them, you can ask if they can visit them to see the completed project with your own eyes.