How Landlords Should Get and Compare Contractor Quotes (Without Getting Burned)

"Get three quotes" is the standard advice for any repair, and it is good advice right up to the point where the three quotes arrive and cannot be compared. One is $1,400, one is $2,650, one is a text message that says "about 2k." Nobody knows whether the $1,400 includes the permit, and the $2,650 contractor has stopped returning calls.

The landlord's problem is not getting quotes. It is getting quotes that answer the same question. This guide is the process that produces them — written from the owner's side, for someone who may be managing a property from an hour away and who cannot afford to redo the work.

Step 1: Decide what the job actually is

Before calling anyone, write the scope down. Half a page is enough for most repairs. Cover:

• The problem as observed, with photos (tenants can send these).
• What you want at the end: "working water heater, same capacity, code-compliant" or "replace kitchen faucet with a two-handle, stainless unit of mid-grade quality."
• What is included: removal and disposal of the old unit, permit if required, any patching or painting of surfaces disturbed by the work.
• What is excluded or to be priced separately: "quote repair of any corroded supply piping found behind the wall as a separate line."
• Access and scheduling constraints: tenant occupied, 24-hour notice required, working hours.

This step also forces a decision you should make deliberately: repair or replace? A 14-year-old water heater with a leaking tank is a replacement, not a repair, and asking for repair quotes wastes everyone's time. If you are unsure, a decision guide for the specific system — water heater, air conditioner, roof — will usually settle it in five minutes based on age and failure mode.

Step 2: Know the price range before the first quote arrives

You cannot judge a quote without a reference point. Before you request bids, find out what the job typically costs in your area for professional work. A repair cost planner that separates materials from labor and gives a professional price range is the quickest way to do this; for larger trades, a call to a supply house ("what does a 50-gallon gas water heater run these days?") gives you the materials floor, and labor is typically 1–2 times materials for straightforward replacements.

The point is not to hold contractors to an online number. It is to recognise the two failure modes: a bid far below range (something is missing, or the contractor is unlicensed and uninsured), and a bid far above range (you are being priced as an absentee owner who will not check). Either one deserves a question, not an automatic yes or no.

Step 3: Find contractors from more than one source

Three quotes from three contractors who all came from the same lead-generation website are often three versions of the same price, because those contractors pay for the same leads and know what the market will bear. Mix your sources:

• Your state or county licensing board's lookup tool — search by trade and area, then verify the licence is current and complaint-free.
• The trade supply house. Plumbing and electrical counters know which local contractors buy good material and pay their bills.
• Other landlords in your market, especially those with similar-age properties.
• Recent permit records for your area, which show who is actually pulling permits for the kind of work you need.
• Lead-generation and review sites — fine as one source among several, never as the only one. Treat "pre-screened" and "verified" badges as marketing unless the site tells you exactly what was checked and when.

HomeRepairPlanner's guide to finding and vetting a contractor covers licensing by trade and the verification steps in more detail.

Step 4: Request the quote properly

Send each contractor the same written scope and photos. Ask for a written quote, and tell them what it needs to contain. A quote that lacks any of these is not comparable and, frankly, is not a quote:

1. Scope of work in enough detail to know what is and is not included.
2. Materials and fixtures specified by type, grade, or allowance amount.
3. Exclusions, stated explicitly.
4. Price, with labor and materials shown separately where practical.
5. Payment schedule: deposit, progress payments, final payment, and what triggers each.
6. Start date and expected duration.
7. Who pulls the permit and who pays for it.
8. Warranty on workmanship, in months or years, in writing.
9. Quote validity period.
10. Licence number and a statement that the contractor carries general liability and workers' compensation insurance.

If a contractor will not provide this in writing for a job over a few hundred dollars, that answers the question for you. Contractors who run a professional operation have a template and will send it the same day. For the contractor's side of this, see how to write a contractor estimate — knowing what a good one looks like from the inside makes it easy to spot a poor one.

Step 5: Verify before you compare

Before spending time on the numbers, remove any bidder who fails verification. This takes fifteen minutes per contractor and is the part most landlords skip.

• Licence: look it up yourself on the licensing board's site. Confirm the name on the licence matches the business quoting, the classification covers this trade, and it is active with no open disciplinary actions.
• Insurance: ask for a certificate of insurance naming you (or your LLC) as certificate holder, issued directly by the insurer or agent. A photocopy from the contractor proves nothing about whether the policy is still in force. Confirm general liability and, if they have employees, workers' compensation.
• References: ask for two from jobs of similar type in the last year, and call them. Ask what went wrong and how it was handled, not whether they were happy.
• Entity: confirm the business is registered with your state and that the name on the quote, the licence, the insurance, and the eventual contract all match.

Step 6: Compare on completeness, then price

Lay the surviving quotes side by side and reconcile them line by line against your scope. Common gaps that make a cheap quote expensive:

• Permit excluded or "by owner."
• Disposal and haul-away not included.
• Lower-grade material than the others assumed.
• No allowance for hidden conditions, so every surprise becomes a change order.
• Patching and painting of disturbed surfaces excluded.
• No written warranty.
• Payment schedule front-loaded (large deposit, most of the balance before completion).

Normalise the bids: add the missing items at a reasonable cost to the quotes that exclude them, and compare the adjusted totals. Very often the "cheapest" quote becomes the middle quote once it includes what the others already did. If you do a lot of this, a simple spreadsheet with one column per contractor and one row per scope item is worth setting up once.

Then weigh the non-price factors honestly. A contractor who answered quickly, wrote a complete quote, and had their insurance certificate sent within a day will probably run the job the same way. The one who sent a two-line text will probably run the job the way they wrote the quote.

Step 7: Put it in a contract

For anything beyond a small service call, the accepted quote should be attached to or converted into a short written agreement that both parties sign. It should restate the scope, price, payment schedule, dates, permit responsibility, warranty, insurance requirement, change-order procedure (changes in writing, priced before work proceeds), and cleanup. Many states require specific terms in residential home-improvement contracts; your state attorney general or consumer protection office usually publishes a plain-language summary.

Keep the signed contract, the certificate of insurance, the permit, inspection sign-offs, and the final invoice together in the property file. If a deposit dispute, insurance claim, or sale ever requires you to prove what was done and by whom, that file is the answer.

A note on tenant-occupied units

Coordinate access yourself. Give the tenant the notice your state requires (commonly 24 hours), tell them who is coming and when, and tell the contractor the tenant's constraints. Do not give contractors a key without the tenant's knowledge, and do not let the tenant and contractor negotiate scope between themselves. You are the client; keep the lines of communication running through you or your property manager.