@Amanda Moskowitz thanks for the post. This is a super important question and it doesn't just apply to contractors. How do you know that a lender is any good? An electrician? A title company? Anything? Even if they do have 20 years experience...how do you know really? And while nothing is foolproof the most consistent method of finding good vendors is relying on OTHER real estate investors that have worked with those vendors. This is why we network with other real estate investors - kind of like what you are doing here!
However, for your need, we need to go local. So, let's try some local real estate meetup groups. Meetup.com is a good resource for those but some of the groups will also post here on Bigger Pockets Marketplace too. Even facebook might have some good local groups for you. Some of those facebook groups have thousands of members. The priority is consistent recommendations from active investors. Oh, eventbrite too. But go locally for this. That’s the best bet.