Desperate cold-calling won’t work.

With 2022 projected to be another huge year for home renovations — and another horrible year for labor shortages — quality contractors will be in such high demand that you actually need a strategy to get their attention, reel them in and lock them down for your project. Luckily, such a strategy exists, and its tried and true tactics are even more effective when contractors are hardest to find.

• Leverage your relationships: Contractors typically get most of their business through referrals, and that hasn’t changed even as demand for their services seems to have reached an all-time high. Most G.C.'s are more likely to answer the phone if you’ve been recommended by a previous customer (that’s right: it’s you who will need to be vouched for in this scenario). The best sources for those referrals have not changed, either: Friends, family, neighbors and (especially) real estate agents.

• Provide detailed plans: Before you get a contractor to give a bid, you should know the specifics of what you want done, which materials you want used and how much you’re willing to spend. In a market like this, contractors don’t have time to walk through the concepting phase with you, and any hints that you are wishy-washy about plans or naive about costs can be grounds for dismissal.

• Be an ideal customer: You may have gotten the sense by now that the tables have turned, and you’re the one “bidding” on the job; that’s very much the case if you want to get any work on your home done this year. With that in mind, if you are more respectful of a contractor’s time, from the moment you call them until the renovation process is completed, you are much more likely to get and keep a good contractor.

Those are the three key steps, but there’s more to be aware of, particularly the fluctuating cost of supplies that’s occurring during this period of rapid inflation.

Read more at AP News: How to Attract Busy Contractors to Your Home Remodel