I just got back from completing a project in SW Florida and was floored by the quality of workmanship and overall management skills of the many contractors that I worked with. I think everyone even showed up when they said they would - it was that good. This was a different type of project than I usually do, but the stark contrast with the experiences I often have in Philadelphia just could not be more extreme. Today, I visited one of my previous contractors who had left Philly for a few years and is back now. He was working on a newbie's project, saving him from absolutely awful workmanship done by another contractor who was about to be fired. I could not get over what I was seeing -this was at a level of disaster that even an unskilled eye could understand that basically nothing was being done right. We talked about the absurdly the non-existent requirements in Pennsylvania  --  a GC does not need to have skills and knowledge. I could see that this newbie investor was headed for a lot of trouble and definitely going to spend quite a bit on fixing what he had allowed someone to do wrong.  So Buyer Beware. When you work in areas like Philadelphia, you really need to check the skill level of your contractors or you will be redoing the work and risk having unhappy tenants and all kinds of problems with the City...    And don't even get me started on the contractors who take a down payment and disappear. Vet each person before you write him a check!