I'll spare you advice on what to look for in a contractor. It's been written about before here. But I will say that I was amazed at the number of people that I called but never heard back from. Out of a long list, I ultimately got quotes from four people.
This is time honored advice: Know thyself and look for someone who's a good fit. I am fairly "hands on" with projects like these. I don't have the mad skillz to do my own tiling, but I like a lot of transparency and input into the process, especially around costs and materials. I'm picky. I bargain hunt, and do a lot of shopping on craigslist and ebay to get a good price. I also bite the heads off small puppies.
I kept all of this in mind when thinking about who to hire. Along with the following:
• Price: I did a lot of quote comparison and made sure that I was comparing apples to apples. Contractors all develop their quotes differently. Some are all inclusive, some have allowances for materials and fixtures. Still others just bid for their labor, and you need to know how much you'll spend on above and beyond man power. I tried not to feel guilty, and went back to ask for things to be broken down, just so I knew exactly what I was looking at.
• Communication/Rapport: I knew we wanted someone that was pretty relaxed and willing to put up with our special requests, such as converting a cabinet into a bathroom vanity. And yes, being a lady, I kept an eye out for any patronizing tones. I also nixed someone that kept talking and talking at me about how he wanted to design the backsplash, even after I told him several times that I already had something else in mind.
• Quality of Work: I saw lots of glossy photos of completed work, but only one guy took us to a completed job so we could check it out. Of course, this isn't always possible, but I did like being able to see the work up close.
• Time: This was least important to us. The condo is a vacation home, so I wasn't too worried about a certain time frame. If anything, since this is a long distance project, I was a little concerned about keeping up our end of the bargain and getting materials to the site in time.
We wound up choosing a team of two guys who were recommended to us by our realtor. Both are local. These guys do most of the work themselves, versus hire a series of sub contractors. They bid for labor only and will leave us to buy everything directly (except stuff like drywall, etc...). This keeps the costs down. I like to think of them as a hybrid between contractors and handymen: handytractors if you will.
There will inevitably be cons to our choice in handytractor, namely losing the big picture organization and planning that comes with a more "full service" contractor. I expect more work on my end, which I am comfortable with.
With a contract signed, and condo association approval garnered, we were good to go. Stay tuned for the next part of this gripping story.
PREVIOUSLY ON THE WORLD'S UGLIEST CONDO:
• Introducing the World's Ugliest Condo
• The World's Ugliest Condo: Scope of Work & Budget
(Image: Shutterstock)
The Ultimate Used Furniture Cleaning Kit
Ana Creates a Community at Home
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Z2 iPod Dock and Wi...
How To Cook Fluffy, Tasty Quinoa
Recipe: Spring Fruit and Nut Tabouli
Hopefully they are more handytractor than conmen.
We had the no-call back problem with electricians - people who had been recommended to us by friends. It makes you wonder how they stay in business. We were super happy when we found someone who called us back, for a decent price, that would listen to us, and could complete the project in a day. Even the person we chose would go on vacation then call us back a week later. Why is it so hard to put an away message on your machine? RM http://suburbiahappens.blogspot.com/
Good luck to you on this. I would never ever use anyone recommended by any realtor I currently know. Hopefully yours is a really awesome person.
The unresponsiveness from contractors and service providers drives me crazy. A call back would take them two seconds and you could move on to the next name on your list and consider them in future. I actually fired the first contractor I hired for my basement renovation for this during the design/planning stage - he would promise to get back to me within a given period of time, that time would pass, and then I would have to hound him for weeks until he'd finally call me back, with excuses on how he'd been sick, or a kid had been sick, or he'd gotten really busy on something, etc., etc. Meawhile, I was working 15-hour days and by about the 5th time this happened, I did not have a whole lot of sympathy. If he would have just given me more realistic time frames or called to let me know it things were taking longer than planned rather than ducking my calls for weeks, I would probably continued with him, but the silver lining is that I replaced him with an awesome architect/contractor team who are super responsive and do great work.
Also, not a contractor, but I have used several service providers (landscaper, cleaning lady, and handyman) recommended by my realtor, and after two years am still very happy with all of them. My realtor's local and knows the neighborhood better than almost anyone else. I'd say if you don't trust your realtor to make those kind of recommendations, you should probably look for a different realtor.
Yeah, if they won't call you back to give you a bid (after visiting and measuring and all that stuff) you do NOT want to hire them. If you have to beg for a quote, just imagine how it is going to be when they start "working." Also really check them out as much as possible - recommendations of friends and neighbors, Better Business Bureau, many google searches, etc. Using this method, so far we have had truly wonderful contractors.
Urg, have definitely felt that frustration of being unable to get a callback. I generally took it as a sign that if they can't manage their business enough to call me back or get me a written quote in a reasonable amount of time (2 weeks!), they wouldn't be able to complete the project to my satisfaction. I also went off recommendations from my real estate agent (she gave us a super-helpful vendor list, and everyone I've worked with on it has been fantastic). I also found it useful to ask the contractors I ended up working with for recommendations for projects that weren't their specialty.
Wow I can understand the frustration in not getting calls back. We on their hand send daily email progress reports from the jobsite. It's one of the many things that set us apart from most contractors.
There are some really great tips on this site about choosing one but if I may here are some you may have missed.
1.If they can't give you an estimate after 24 hours you will most likely experience cost overruns.
2.Make sure they show you some project they completed! I take pride in my work and love to show it off! If they can't assume they are hiding something.
-GothamDB@gmail.com