Dealing with contractors for the first time

[Steven Hornstein]

Hello all,

I am a first time home buyer and will be using the strategy of living in a piece of property and renting out additional bedrooms through Airbnb to help cover the cost of the mortgage, and hopefully make a profit above the mortgage. In order to get my up and running I need new floors installed and mold in the bathroom removed and replaced. I was listening on one of the podcast episodes a while back, and I feel like I heard something about how I should only deal with licensed contractors who can supply me a tax identification form that way I can write off the work done from my taxes. My question is, 1. is this true, and 2. does the person need to a licensed contractor in order for me to write off the work done. Any help to this question would be extremely helpful and thank you in advance