How to Choose a General Contractor Without Guessing

August 11, 2026•2 min read

You wouldn't buy insurance without comparing quotes. How would you know you're getting the best price if you have nothing to compare it to?

The same principle applies to general contractors.

The price difference between general contractors can vary by a lot, for the same project, on the same drawings. Without something to compare a bid against, you have no way of knowing if you're looking at a fair price or an inflated one.

We Bid Your Project Out to Multiple Qualified Contractors

That's why Realm bids out all projects to at least 7 different local contractors before you select one. But we don't just bid your project out to anyone, first, contractors have to qualify to join the Realm contractor network.

To qualify, Realm ensures all contractors have experience with your buildout type: tenant improvement, ground-up, or modular. Beyond just asking how many years they've worked, we request specific projects they've built so we can confirm their quality. We also require them to carry General Liability Insurance, to protect you and them.

Then We Level the Bids

More than likely, you don't just get multiple quotes before choosing an insurance company yourself, you hire an agent to get those quotes for you and negotiate the best deal. That's exactly what Realm does for your buildout.

We don't just collect bids and forward them to you. We level them.

Each contractor sends back their quote as an itemized list. Realm compares those itemized lists to see where contractors are coming in higher or lower than each other. Then we go back to the contractors, using that comparison, to bring their numbers down and level the bids, so you end up paying market value, not just whatever the first number happened to be.

What That Actually Looks Like

With this process, we've seen one contractor drop their number from $750,000 to $300,000, on the exact same scope of work, once they knew they were being compared. Same project. Same drawings. A $450,000 difference, just from being asked to compete.