Selecting the best contractors to do the repairs on a rental properties is paramount, particularly if your property management company.
Hi, there! Joe White here from Grow Property Management, your trusted property management company in Philadelphia.
Jackie asked me a great question recently – how do I vet contractors? Honestly, it’s a little tough to answer because my situation is different from that of an average landlord. I run a property management company in Philadelphia, and we deal in high volume. We give some contractors six figures’ worth of business every year. That puts us in a different league in terms of access, pricing, and leverage. But I’ll do my best to offer advice that can apply to anyone – from someone managing one rental to someone managing dozens.
I can share how I used to do it, and how my approach has evolved. In the beginning, I looked for contractors who made my problems their problems – guys I could build relationships with. If I had an emergency repair or a tenant in distress, I wanted to be able to call up a contractor and have them prioritize me because of our relationship. And I did that – I went to lunch with them, stayed friends with many of them, and tried to keep those ties strong. But you know what? That approach never really worked out.
As my company grew, we started attracting a different type of contractor – contractors who had their own internal code of conduct. They didn’t cut corners, didn’t adjust pricing depending on who the client was, and didn’t do “favors” based on relationships. At first, I thought it might make working with them more difficult. But over time, I saw that their consistency, fairness, and high standards were exactly what made them valuable.
These contractors weren’t bending over backwards to win my business at first. Many of them were top-rated in the area, busy with other clients, and selective with the work they took on. But what won me over – and what I now appreciate deeply – is that they’ve set their own standards of quality and stuck to them, whether they’re working on my personal home or one of our rentals.
Their pricing is fair and consistent. They don’t give me “buddy” discounts – and that’s actually a good thing. They aren’t trying to win favor; they’re trying to do excellent work, every time, for every client. That kind of integrity is more important to me now than any kind of personal relationship.
Over time, many of these contractors did become friendly with us. But it didn’t start that way. It wasn’t about being nice or doing favors – it was about delivering high-quality, honest work, on time and at a fair price. And now, because of that mutual respect, we’ve built something even stronger.
One of the greatest benefits I’ve seen is how these contractors interact with tenants. Sometimes, a tenant gets upset because something wasn’t fixed fast enough – maybe there’s a roof leak, and they expect someone to be there within the hour. But if it’s still raining, we literally can’t send a roofer in to do anything meaningful until the rain stops. These contractors understand that. And more importantly, they help the tenant understand that. They end up being our best advocates, telling tenants that we’re a good company doing our best. That kind of support from the people doing the actual repair work goes a long way.
So, how do I find these contractors? One of the first things I do is check Google Reviews. I read through them carefully – not just the star rating, but the actual content of the reviews. A bad review doesn’t automatically scare me off. Sometimes it’s clearly an unreasonable customer, and sometimes it reveals something important about the contractor’s communication style or professionalism. I try to get a sense of how the contractor operates and whether I’d trust them with my business.
That said, not all good contractors have a ton of reviews. A really good contractor who focuses on large-scale renovations might only need a few clients to stay fully booked, which means they don’t always ask for or accumulate lots of reviews. So reviews are just a starting point.
What I really look for now are contractors who run their businesses well. That sounds simple, but it’s actually a huge differentiator. When someone runs their business well, it’s obvious – they communicate clearly, they show up on time, they invoice fairly, and they deliver what they promise. You can’t fake that over time. On the flip side, if someone runs their business poorly, it also shows quickly – and no amount of friendliness or charm can cover that up.
I’ve learned not to go after the “nice guys” who promise favors or special treatment. Instead, I want people who are professional to their core. And interestingly enough, those are the people who tend to become friends over time – not because we asked for favors, but because mutual respect grew naturally from working together.
And I honestly believe that people either run their businesses with ethics or they don’t. It’s not something you decide one morning. It’s who you are. Contractors who take pride in their work, who want to be fair and honest, and who genuinely care about the service they provide – that’s who I want to work with. That’s who I trust to go into my properties and interact with my tenants.
So, Jackie, I wish I had a more straightforward formula for you. But the truth is, vetting contractors is about doing your research, reading reviews critically, starting with small jobs to test reliability, and looking beyond friendliness to find people who operate with consistency and integrity. And once you find those people, they can become some of your greatest assets.
Just a humble Philadelphia property management company owner here, doing my best to answer your rental property investing questions.
As always, happy rental property investing.
