At Home Reports, we conduct extensive consumer research to review contractors. Using the data collected through our phone interviews with homeowners, we rate companies, such as pest control technicians, plumbers, and landscapers. Over the past three years, our staff of trained researchers has conducted more than 17,000 interviews, and we use these testimonials to provide third-party ratings in more than three dozen categories. But we don't just rate the good guys: most contractors fail to meet our Best Pick qualifications.

To be eligible for Home Reports Best Pick status, companies have to meet our high standards for quality, efficiency, and customer service, and we must have a large percentage of reviews from satisfied customers. Companies cannot buy a good rating; the only way contractors can obtain a good rating is by receiving good customer reviews.

Home Reports is produced by Probix Inc., which was founded in 1997 by company president Walt Jenkins. Walt was inspired to create Home Reports after hearing about the frustrations experienced by many of his friends and family members when they tried to hire home service companies.

Prior to founding the firm, Walt served as a management consultant at McKinsey and Company. Walt holds a Masters of Management from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. At Northwestern, he was schooled in the concepts and principles of effective research design and marketing research. Before graduate school, Walt was a manager for General Electric and a summa cum laude engineering graduate of Bucknell University.