Find the right designer first. The KD will have the better contractor contacts and you won’t have to do the legwork and hand wringing.

Everyone's priorities are different. That said, mine was looking for someone who would go the distance to figure out how to get my job done in the best way possible. Is it perfect? no. But -- when the inevitable issues came up that could not have been recognized before the job started (identified need for additional structural support, had the engineers on staff to figure out how to address, handled the whole thing......or when the flooring installer did a less-than-acceptable job) .... it was how they might handle those types of things. They had the staff/professional relations to figure out that there was an issue, and then how to address it. They were also very big on communication, so we got regular updates as to what was going on, what would happen next, and general schedule of things. Good luck!

Most important to us was reliability, experience and competence/attention to detail. Special offers and incentives were irrelevant. We had several contractors recommended by our KD, all of whom he promised us would do great work for us. We went with one of the higher bids, and our major reason for choosing him over the others was that he worked on one project at a time rather than juggling multiple jobs. It was important to us that we see him every day and not wonder when he was showing up. That might not be important to everyone, but it was to us.