We've built, ground-up, several homes and my mortgage company finances tons of new construction projects.

I am also looking at a new company called Noshable that does grocery delivery precheck in and gives kickbacks as well.

See what the pool company has to say.

You should only need the SSN or license if you are hiring a collections company.

Also you could start with local Plan-printing companies as they're always printing plan sets for architects and designers before they go to county and after the county comes back with changes.

Use caution when borrowing against your stock portfolio, especially if it's a high volatility portfolio comprised of individual companies.

Go search the topic "Lifestyle Asset University" here on Bigger Pockets and you will see a longer thread with a lot of opinions (most are not members) but still worth a read as there are a half a dozen paid members from our group who have commented on that thread.We were formerly called Lifestyle Asset University, but I didn't realize that you couldn't use the word University in your company name here in Utah so we changed our name to Vodyssey. 

We got three estimates from masonry repair companies ranging from $7,500 (patch) to $35,000 ("do this repair now or you will need a major $80K repair").

Fast forward to when they were there (but not the designer, she never went and never told me she wouldn't go) I see my card was charged a huge amount, including an additional 5k from her own company, above and beyond the 7.5k I had sent her!!

IF that is the case full stop - yes you are paying for something called insurance but if you have a claim the company has the right to pretty much deny coverage for having the wrong type of policy.Landlord policies are higher cost but for a reason - there is a different and increased level of risk when the house is not owner occupied.Talk with your agent and get all the details sorted out.