As somebody who was in the remodeling business, I would always ask a potential customer "how many other contractors have you discussed this work with?" If they said more that two, I would generally cut my losses, politely cut the meeting short, and move on.
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most folks who are past that number of bidders are typically looking to do the work as cheaply as possible
With all due respect; you are simply wrong for assuming that. And I would not want to do business with you because of it.
I just got the 9th estimate for my roof. I learned what to look for and ask thru the first 4-5 estimates. There is no way I would go with any of the 3 lowest offers. They weren't professional or trustworthy. One offered to give me a 'cash price'.
One guy's first price included remove and replace my chimney on the pretense that it's "gonna have to be done sooner or later". The professional that cleaned it a cpl yrs ago didn't think so.
Not many roofing companies last very many years. That makes finding one with a proven reputation very hard. You have to meet them (or their representative) and that is done by getting an estimate.
It has nothing to do with who is right or wrong here, it's a matter of seeing the other side, and understanding the value of the other guy's time. As a contractor, one of the great lessons you need to learn early is that time is money, and it expensive to either squander it, or give it away for free. You are another outlier in the game, the vast majority would NEVER interview nine potential contractors, and 99% would never reject the three lowest bids. I'm certainly not saying you are wrong, but you are also a bit of a unicorn, and just as you wouldn't do business with a guy like me, after you have heard my unvarnished experience with folks who are looking for that many bids, if could get you to reveal the fact that I was the eighth guy to walk in the door, I would absolutely cut the meeting short, and politely cut my loses. Would it be my loss? Possibly, but statistically I would be making a solid decision. Nothing personal, it's just math.
Most folks will use their network and find satisfied friends, neighbors, etc... to narrow their potential choices down to three, maybe four contractors or service providers. At that point, they will interview all of them and make a good decision. I can assure you that the majority of typical potential customers who are have interviewed 8 or 9 contractors, are not worth wasting time on, when you are trying to establish a relationship with a client who is willing to pay a fair amount for a high quality job.
The other issue is that you are of the mindset that a typical roofing contractor is some sort of fly by night who is nowhere to be found in a few years. Maybe you are right, and it's true for your market area, OTOH, maybe you could of done more to vet potential contractors before you even called the first one? In many locations it's possible to find multiple bidders who have been in business for decades and aren't going anywhere, any time soon. In this area, there are dozens of solid options when selecting a roofer, and most will tell you that they won't be getting to your job for months, since they have more work that they can handle. That is another reason why many contractors wouldn't waste much time with somebody who is looking for their tenth bid on a residential re-roof job. If you have more work than you can handle, there is little incentive to try to earn the work from a one time customer who has spent dozens of hours with other contractors, and in most cases, placing a lot of weight on the price, over quality or reputation. On a typical re-roof, the owner of a small roofing company is putting a few hundred bucks in his pocket as he cashes your check, how many hoops should he jump though to earn your business, particularly in the current market where many are constantly search for more help to keep up with the amount of work they already have?
EDIT: Having reread this tread, I noticed your comment :
Strip and re-shingle is labor intensive, so it's money going into the roofers pocket. You probably don't need it if your roof has a single layer of shingles and no problems. This quite frankly, throws up a lot of red flags. First in my humble experience, I have yet to meet a top notch roofer who throws fresh shingles on top of older ones. I have never done it, never will, and really can't recall anybody who ever did subcontract roofing for me who ever said that it was anything but a garbage way to cut corners. Existing shingles can leave a pretty poor surface for the new ones to sit on. Some three tab flat shingles will get significant curls in them as they age, and the will be happy to curl under the new roof, and make the new roof look like shit. All shingles are heavy, and leaving tons of garbage laying on a roof and covering it with new shingles, is rarely good for the structure or your wallet, down the road. I have seen cases where installing a new roof involved tearing off THREE layers of old shingles that clowns installed over the years, resulting in a huge unnecessary costs. Second, the "money going into roofers pockets" comment really makes me question where your head is at on all of this. First, few things suck worse that stripping old shingles, it's miserable work, clean up of the entire jobsite afterwards is a PITA, since the nail you miss will be in the customer's tire by morning. It creates a huge pile of heavy debris that is expensive to haul away, and often is treated differently at landfills and transfer stations, where it is ridiculously expensive to dispose of. To put it simply, no roofer wants to do it, yet in my experience every decent roofer does it. Huh, that sounds like an odd concept? Until you realize that that's what it takes to do a quality job. Nothing personal, but if you are on bid #9, 10 or whatever, and you are on this thread recommending that somebody leaves old shingles on, to prevent the roofer from making some sort of big mythical, non-existent windfall from needlessly removing old shingles from your roof, you have a bit more to learn on the topic.