$7500 does sound like a lot. Your realtor really has no one to suggest? That's weird. They usually have a list of preferred contractors because when things come up in inspections, it's helpful to have people you trust to fix the work. Do you know anyone who maybe used to flip houses for money? They usually have a list of preferred contractors as well (for emergencies).

Speaking of which - do you know any inspectors? They may know of a general contractor that they would trust. We used a plumber recommended by our home inspector when we moved in. We found our BEST contractor so far by hiring a company to do our siding. The contractor worked for them but was so knowledgeable and easy to work with that we hired him separately to do some other work.

You could also pick a name out of the yellow pages and then Google them to see what others are saying. Sometimes that works out well.

I found Angie's list to be useless for us. We are too far from a major city to get anyone to travel out to us and very few businesses local to us were listed. It was really disappointing.