Your budget is absolutely irrelevant to what the GC you want charges. He's charging what the market will bear. You will pay what the market will bear or you'll not get an experienced GC or the GC you want. I don't make the laws of economics, but I know what they are.

As long as you're home isn't over three stories high, I could build it with my Florida Building Contractor's license. Unfortunately, I don't do general contracting and don't have any recommendations.

8 bedrooms in 4500 sq.ft? Are you building a special community/medical type housing?

Dan A said:

"that is reasonably affordable (many have taken advantage of the surging demand by raising prices by a lot but that unfortunately won't fit in my budget)."

If the current quotes from Miami contractors isn't in your budget, maybe you need to reduce the scope of the project or wait out the market. Contractors in FL got "killed" during the last RE bust, so they are making up for those losses the last 3 years and taking whatever profits the current hot RE market will allow. You don't have to build now and pay current rates ... you can wait for the next RE bust and take "advantage" of a builder!

Thanks guys! Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all of the life coaching and design advice, but the purpose of this thread was to see if anyone has recommendations about someone that they've worked with before. If you do, I'd love to hear from you! If you don't have specific recommendations of contractors to share but want to share advice, please do me a favor and message me privately or share the comments on a new thread to avoid distracting from the main topic.

Thanks!