Yeah, definitely. Your best bet is to make your spec documents as detailed as possible, to the letter. Then, only hire someone whose references you've checked;

Yeah, definitely. Your best bet is to make your spec documents as detailed as possible, to the letter. Then, only hire someone whose references you've checked; ask them how reliable are they (do they randomly disappear?) and ask them how close they stuck to their initial estimate. I like looking on Craigslist when I prefer to deal with an American and Rentacoder when I'm willing to go international.