I need help finding new contractors/general contractors

[Jeffrey Hayes]

I have been a real estate broker for about 7 years in Tucson, Az and I'm ready to get into the flip business. I specialize in residential real estate. After reading the Bigger Pockets book on flipping houses I decided that I might need to hire a general contractor for the first few flips at least since the repair/rehab cost is the one area that I'm really weak in. I just starting interviewing potential general contractors for my business but I'm not sure which route I want to go as far as hiring them for the entire rehab job or just hiring them to do a walkthrough with me to give me a rough estimate of the rehab cost so that I make an offer and then bring them back for a more detailed estimate if my offer is accepted. The one general contractor that I talked to a few days ago said that he would do some walk throughs with me for free however I'm not sure how it would work as far as paying him if my offer gets accepted, because I might just take the route of hiring out my own separate sub contractors or even ones that he chooses for each job needed such as tile, carpet, roof, plumbing etc. What I'm saying is that if the general contractor does a free walk through with me before I even make an offer on a house and if I get the contractor to give me a more accurate rehab estimate after my offer is accepted(during the 10 day inspection period) and is under contract how will/should I structure payment to him if I just want to use his sub contractors and if I want to do the managing part as far as scheduling and supervising/overseeing the whole project myself as I don't want to add an extra 10-30% on to my cost as my capital will be pretty limited when I start? The general contractor that I will be using will obviously need to be paid for his work as far as rough(before offer is made) and detailed estimates(after home is under contract) but if I don't use him to oversee entire project then I'm not sure what would be in it for him if I want to oversee the entire project instead. I could just try and bring out my own contractors for each possible repair but this would be a very time consuming and ineffecient way to get a repair cost and I don't want to waste a contractors time for homes that I might not even get an offer accepted on. Plus many good deals go pretty fast so you really have to move on them. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks, Jeffrey Hayes Hayes Realty LLC