Best practices for getting bids on a potential property

[Rob Terpilowski]

Hello BP,

I am looking at a number of distressed properties to potentially purchase and rehab, and am wondering what is the accepted practice for getting bids on the property, as far as what point in the process do you get a contractor out to the site to provide a bid?  Ideally, I'd like to get bids before I place an offer in order to have a good handle on the rehab costs and place my offer accordingly, but on the other side of the coin, I could potentially place offers on many different properties before having one accepted, all the while I'm getting bids from contractors for which the job for them doesn't materialize.

Or, do I visit the properties myself and with my agent, make an very rough estimate of rehab costs, make an offer based on the estimate, and then bring contractors in for bids *after* getting the property under contract, then potentially renegotiate the offer price if the bids come in higher than estimated?

Thanks,

-Rob