How do you find trustworthy, affordable, licensed contractors?

[Ken Sypal]

Hi, after about 20 nearly trouble-free flips, I've finally run into a mess of problems with contractors and am finding myself in need of some new ones.  I would like to have at least 3 reliable ones I turn to.  They must be licensed (or have licensed friends/partners that they can work under), do decent work, and be reasonably priced.  If you've had success at consistently finding good contractors that fit this description, I would love to hear how you've found them.  Thanks in advance!  Ken

[Casity Kao]

@Ken Sypal Feel fortunate that you have had 20 trouble free flips.  Personally whenever I have a great contractor I know in a short period of time they are going to move on because they are going to find clients that they can charge more if they do great work, as most of my contractors I use are priced very well.  I think you deep down know what to expect out of a good contractor, and you probably know as well as many of us that good contractors are hard to find so when you find them do your best to hold on to them or keep them happy.  I often run into contractors that do not have alot of references I can truly verify and many times I need them last second if I'm trying someone out brand new and not known to me, so what we resort to is giving them a tryout with no money down.  At the end of a few hours of work or a maybe a day we or one of our other contractors examine their work to see if it's up the quality that we believe.  We are up front that the work has to be quality or they will not make it to the next days worth of work.  In most cases, except one the contractor does a good job the first time we use them.  If they are showing signs of cutting corners or we have to micro manage them then we cut them at the end of the job as we know it's only to get worst going forward.