Keep looking. Sometimes quality professionals keep a low profile to keep from being too busy. Hopefully your lifestyle and heritage and political views and all that other irrelevant shtuff is not the reason for your predicament. Stay positive, keep your sense of humor, take notes for the book, and know that the mountain you are climbing will be good for you and your community.

Go outside the zip code and since money is no option pay the extra and honestly how does a person know, what color you are or your sexual orientation , unless you tell them. I know there is a lot og bigitry but not everyone is a bigot. I have no idea what the area you live in is like but it must have more than just your stately home so maybe check with those people to see who they use.

Where are you in Prince George's? (I'm in Prince William.) There are many quality contractors in the DC metro area; don't limit yourself to a small search. Yes, I am familiar with the issues in that county close to the District but maybe contractors just can't get to you right now. DC is still under lockdown, as is NoVa.

I've had a problem with finding contractors, living here on the outer fringes, because many don't want to fight the traffic back and forth which, if you've moved here in the last two months, you haven't experienced yet.

If you are requesting work at a certain monetary level, you aren't being judged as being at the poverty level. My lily white daughter, married to a black man, lives in Fairfax County and just on their street is a real United Nations assortment of couples and children. Hopefully you will see, when things (ever) get back to normal, that this is an amazingly tolerant area.

Wow that was a lot live_wire_oak.

No budget means no budget. The costs stated are cost. For example the same home here purchased for $300K runs about $1.6M in Los Angeles. Don't know market well enough to establish cost and besides we're seeking design-build firms but thanks for all of that.

I used to live in Montgomery County, and I know your pain. I actually had a plumber once call me after he’d left to tell me I was a perfect example of why women should have never been given the right to vote. (He saw a photo in my house of me with a political figure—I was not the one to bring up politics. ) Wish I had a suggestion for you, but I’ve since left the area.

OP, live_wire_oak is a GC and he is giving you the view from his perspective which I find is accurate among contractors. No plans means no bid or response.

But since you are looking for design-build firms, consider hiring your own architect to bring your vision to life. There is an excellent architect here on houzz (several actually) but there is one that is near your area and does remote work too. Check out ARG (architectrunnerguy) here on houzz. I think you will be pleasantly surprised :)

it sounds like you still need to research more what you want, where you want to build and the average property values in that area.

if the average property values are $300k, do you want to build a $300k house or a $1.6M house?

Maybe post what i fo you’re sending out for bid and you can get feedback on how to update it to try to get more responses from contractors

How wide of a search area are you looking? Wikipedia lists Prince George's County as one of the most affluent African-American counties in the US. So I don't believe that you have contractors not interested because they don't think that there is money to be spent. What you are more likely finding is some of your own responses to contractors are disqualifying you from business. I am owner-building a home. My husband is not very involved in the process. So imagine that when I call for bids, that they are not taking me seriously, even with my custom plans in hand. And yes, you have a budget. I'm in Nebraska...you can't build a very large home for $300,000. Maybe your budget is 10 trillion dollars, but you DO have a budget. Be realistic with how much you think it will cost to build what you want as well as what you are willing to spend to get it exactly right. To go to a design-build company and say that you have no budget just tells them you are unrealistic and aren't far enough along in the process for them to spend time with. You are a tire-kicker. You may build eventually. You may buy eventually. You may figure out what you want eventually. But right now, you are a tire-kicker.

Are you only looking on Houzz? Do a Google search for builders in your area. They all have websites. Go visit a few. You need a Houzz account with photos of what you want to share with them. You need a good idea what you want ahead of time. Are there floorplans you already kind of like? Are you building a 1.5 story, ranch, 2 story? How many bedrooms? What other rooms do you need? Do you have a needs list and a want list? Do you have a list with approximate room sizes? Even with an unlimited budget, they still need to know if you want a 14*14 master bedroom or need it 30*90. These contractors have been so busy with work and it is only possibly starting to slow down a bit now. Many of the best builders are booked 2 years out. You may have to go through a few who feel like they can add any business. And from my experience, they want easy clients. They don't want to work with those 20% that create 80% of their work. (80/20 rule)

I don’t know about the rest of you, but a huge red flag for us was the customer who was compelled to tell us, “ I have the biggest house in (name any development in our area)”. They would turn out to be arrogant know-it-all’s who wanted to micromanage any project without any construction experience or knowledge. And the difficulty getting payments.... We all learned very early in our business experiences to pass on clients who present themselves with major problems before the quote is finished or, as in this case, even started. Tony, preparing a quote requires hours and hours of time, over many days. It is based on actual plans and specific sizes, materials, and finishes. In addition, you should look for a contractor who builds in your price range, not too far below or too far above. You are signaling to the contractors you are going to cause problems and that is not the face you want to present if you are looking for quality work.