Kinda like shopping for a car: when you really think about what you want or need, you may decide good gas mileage, large enough for your family, good power, and other specific qualities or features.

On the other hand, hiring a GC provides a one-stop shop with streamlined communication, experience, and expertise.

I am researching same market and we live very close by, if you interested, we can meet for coffee and discuss.

There's a lot to be gained by selecting your items and putting them in your shopping cart (online) but not yet checking out so that you're ready to pull the trigger once you've closed, especially if you're doing MTR or LTR.

Since we don’t shop our interest rates around they gave us 7 year versus 5 year balloon terms.  

Small shops just wont have the resources to train a new agent properlly.

The only thing I can think of is shop around for different insurance, and make sure your property tax assessment is at or below the appraised value of your refinance.  

Or as another poster suggested, chase the wholesale deals on your own.I'm in Colombia for a couple weeks, but PM me and we can have a coffee and talk real estate when I get back.

With all due respect to the development big firms out there, my project is very small and I believe I'd be best served by a small firm or even one-man shop, and frankly a bigger firm will likely not have time for a small deal.I simply need a low-cost conceptual plan that I can use for marketing to builders.

Got to shop around and see what is offered.