Rehab, GC's and For Sale by Owner Questions

[Mason Crane]

Hi all!

This will be my first actual thread on the forum, so if I miss anything that needs to be elaborated upon please let me know!

I'm in the process of overseeing a rehab on a property that my father owns in Albuquerque, NM. It's a single-family home in a decent neighborhood. The previous "tenant" we had was on a lease-to-own contract, and defaulted on the payments. We ended up paying her $1000 to move out so that we could rehab and re-sell the property. 

I'm not entirely sure whether we're looking for a traditional buyer, or if we are going to carry the paper again, but I'm guessing we are going for the latter.

I'm helping with the rehab and the sale, once it's ready, in order to gain some experience and knowledge in the field of real estate investing; as I'm hoping to dive into it immediately after this fix and flip.

My question is mostly in regard to bidding out and hiring a general contractor for the rehab. I contacted the previous GC who orchestrated the last rehab on this particular property, as well as a highly regarded referral from two real estate investor friends of mine. Upon receiving bids from both GC's I noticed a $6-9k difference in price between both quotes. The GC who did the last rehab on the house bid around $9k for the rehab, while the referral GC bid $15-18k.

Having said that, the original GC's knowledge and experience with house flipping is unknown to me, but the referral GC has 77 successful flips under his belt, with a very prominent real estate investor in town.

We are trying to minimize our investment in the rehab, but we also need to create an amazing curb appeal, as well as crispness to the inside of the house.

Which general contractor would you choose for the rehab, and if possible please list a few reasons why you would go with that GC over the other. If I've missed any pertinent information please let me know. I appreciate you taking the time to read and comment!