| Actually I learned from the company that I worked for, to always get three | quotes, as I did quite a bit of purchasing. Unless one company looks like a | cheater or somehow shady, the procedure is not to buy from the lowest bidder | nor from the highest bidder, usually the middle price is the most accurate. | If one gives you doubts, try a forth quote, but it should be unnecessary. |
That's standard advice. To some extent it makes sense. On the other hand, I won't bid at all in such a situation. I have a lot of regular customers and prefer to work by reference. If someone's getting 3 bids that's often a sign that they already have a preferred contractor but just want to make sure his price is OK. At best, I'm going to spend my time for a 1 in 3 chance of getting a job for someone with whom it's not a personal relationship. That's not worth it to me. As long as I have enough work to get by I won't even consider bidding.
Another problem with that approach is that with most jobs it's not easy to know exactly what each contractor will do, because it's often not easy to know exactly what a job well done will entail.
I wouldn't say that one shouldn't ever get 3 bids. In some cases that might be necessary in order to get a sense of the landscape. But having a rule of getting 3 bids really means that you have no relationships with contractors who you trust, and that you don't expect any of them to be trustworthy. You have no hesitation about wasting their time in order to "get yours". That's really not a very good way to operate. Much better to ask friends and find someone who they've worked with and trust. Then you won't have to make uninformed decisions about whether the price is fair.