.#3 Contact Local Contractors for PricingCall local Subcontractors and get budget pricing for common repairs on your typical rehab project.For example, call a roofer and ask what their average cost per Square of Architectural Asphalt Shingle Roofing would be on a 1,500 sf house, with a 6/12 pitch.Note: Some contractors will be reluctant to share pricing without seeing the property, but tell them you are just looking for a rough budget number you can use on future projects.#4 Compile Your Prices into a Spreadsheet or Estimating SoftwareOnce you start to get a better understanding of Labor and Material costs you will want to store this data into a spreadsheet or software that you can use to help you streamline the estimating process.The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs comes with a spreadsheet that you can use to help you populate your own database of labor pricing and material pricing.

If I were to advertise my vacant land, I would do that ground work for them (but its time consuming) Call the utilities and ask how much each one costs to connect, then get estimates to put a gravel road/ asphalt road/ cement road.  

Cost of constructing 24 feet wide 700 feet in lenght asphalt road?

With any other business, you must spend money to earn customers.A contractor can consider giving estimates as his investment in earning new customers.You won't get any customers if you aren't out there beating the pavement making the sales...

This comes with time and pounding the pavement.

The most important thing is to take action right away and be consistent with your marketing message and frequency.Website and Online MarketingDirect MailDriving for DollarsPounding the Pavement (door knocking, yellow letters, call me post-its)Check Public Records (Tax, Probate, Bankruptcy, Divorce)CraigslistNetwork with REI, agents, brokers, inspectors

Since I needed some asphalt work done on a side roof anyway I just had the whole thing replaced.

Talk to people in the neighbourhood....simply ask them "do you happen to know what rents are like around here".A bit of time spent "pounding the pavement" and you should have a pretty good idea about rent.  

Have your business card printed with simple contact information and call yourself a handy-man; commercial building cleaner, whatever you want and just pound the pavement to small businesses and commercial buildings to offer to clean their businesses.Offer to do it for $10 an hour with a 2 hour minimum.

Example, someone selling mobile homes ( dealer) , tell them we are looking for another park, large asphalt work completed ( they service other commercial ) tell them we are looking for parks, a lot of the guys we use say for decking, skirting , electric, are typically doing work in other parks as well.