Getting Contractor quotes before closing

[Roman Pak]

Hi BP, I'd like your input on something. I'm finding it very difficult to schedule a viewing for my contractor to walk through the property before I make my offers. Does anyone have a good idea about how to show the property to your contractor without them being there. I've thought of things like recording or photographing the entire walk through, or even a live skype session or something. I know this may sound stupid, but here's the reason why. 

In the last week and a half I've lost out on two potential flips. I had to cancel my purchase contract on Property 1, and Property 2 was snapped up in literally 2 days, just before my contractor could see it. 

I visited property 1 with my partner, we made a list of renovations and things we found "wrong", put an offer in, it got accepted, but upon inspection there were many more things revealed; enough to double the rehab cost as a matter of fact, we ended up cancelling the deal. I feel that if my contractor was able to be there or see the property beforehand we would not have made an offer on the property in the first place. 

Property 2 had great flip potential. It had a huge profit margin and mostly cosmetic work, priced very low even for an REO. I saw it on Tuesday. I wanted to put an offer in the next day (wed.), but decided to wait until my contractor could see it the following day(thurs.)

Sure enough, the property went under contract on Thursday morning. 

Do you think I'm going about this incorrectly, or do I need to do a better job getting my contractor to see the property in one way or another, again with video, pictures, whatever. 

All suggestions are welcome, especially if they work well for you.