Make sure you going to suppliers not retailers. 8 foot by 26” should be Available just under $300 with 8 feet of 6” backsplash.

He'd take his F250 to the rock supplier, fill'er up, and we'd unload it by hand.

So these folks should be viewed differently and afforded different protections than suppliers/manufacturer/distributors/stores that a "salesperson" would be dealing with...if a business allows itself to be ripped off that's very different than preying on regular citizens. 

The problem also when soliciting bids, is different scope, you need to tell each and every contractor what you want, write it down, print it, give it to them for pricing, be as specific as possible, have samples from your local supplier store if possible, if not, let them know to give you a price limit on estimates, say "put up a budget of $150 for the toilets, ill pick a design at home depot later".  

If your rehab costs is $60k....Draw 1 at $20k worth of workDraw 2 at $40k worth of workDraw 3 at $60k worth of workDo...the most you are out of pocket is $20k, and some of your subs suppliers clay can wait until the draw is issued to receive their payment. 

What I have found some success with is leveraging my suppliers.

Now if you go to the flooring store and the board sample doesn't look like this then you have a case against him or the supplier.

I'm amazed you can still get the breakers for them - I had to order a double-pole for an AC unit and had no trouble getting one (through the mail, local suppliers had nothing). 

Lastly you can purchase a list from someplace like ListSource.com or other data suppliers and do a bigger bulk mailing.These are just a couple options, I'm sure others will jump in with some more ideas.

I bought windows from them b/c they had the best price but not sure if they're a better-price, easy-to-schedule supplier of these items.