Most homeowners are not well educated in the homebuilding or remodeling process and may only do one or two such projects in their entire lifetime. Often they make a poor choice in selecting a contractor when it is based on price alone. The assumption with competitive bidding is that the plans and specifications are so clear and unambiguous that any randomly selected, reasonably competent contractor will be able to do the job exactly as envisioned. While more and more clients are aware that they can’t just hire the lowest bidder, few do a lot of research about which contractors to ask for proposals beyond getting some referrals or references from friends, Realtors or architects.