What to do About Contractors?!

[Matthew Johnson]

Hello BP,

New to real estate and loving it! If I could get a reliable contractor I think I could be great at this BRRRR stuff.

Looking for some tips.  

I’m wondering what my expectations should be for a contractor to finish a job. I’m well aware the the answer depends on 1000 factors but I’ll give a very brief description of the fist rehab I just completed and the one I’m doing.

1st job - 1800 sq feet sfh block house. Repipe/replumb, Kitchen cabinets/counter, new interior doors, nothing structural.

current job - 2300 sq feet replace all windows ~20, sand and stain wood floors, reside detached garage, partial repipe, rewrire, interior/exterior paint, new kitchen countertop.

I’m certain that my current contractor is taking too long but I’m not sure what is realistic to expect?

I felt like I got a great off market deal but literally finding any licensed contractor to do work in my market feels near impossible right now. The contractor I have does marginal work at best, but gets things to pass inspection somehow. I think he will probably end up taking 1 year to finish my current project - I can't even get him to start. Would you fire him and hope to find someone affordable? Ive called 20-25 people and so far only 1 lead which would take 3 weeks to get a bid back from. I'm also worried any other bids will come in too expensive to make the numbers work. My purchase price was 92k and ARV ~250k. If someone comes in over 100k it's not going to work for me. This guy will be about 80 and the job done poorly in a year plus I'll have to manage the **** out of the guy. The risk of firing him is I'm stuck with a property I can't rehab and also I need to figure out how to get my fairly large deposit back from him (shouldn't have sent that I know)

Thanks for the help!!