Being your own General Contractor

[3RRL]

Eddie,
Your reply is an excellent one and thank you for taking the time to do it.
At one time I thought about being my own GC but after reading material on the net about doing it, I changed my mind. Their are several sites if you look around and read them that reflect exactly what Eddie points out. If you are there everyday to over see and have some knowledge, you MIGHT stand a chance of getting through the build with less problems (like a real GC does). If you are a distance from the build site, I'd say forget it. There is no way to exercise control until it's too late. Just my 2¢.

 

[Doc_Bob]

I'm sorry for such a long winded reply, I can go on and on, but the point is that if you do it yourself, you better have a sense on humor, not stress easily and be prepaired for suprises. It's not about how well you plan, but how well you handle and fix the problems.

Good luck,
Eddie

Nice reply, good information.
Bob

 

[Doc_Bob]

If being a GC was "easy", then anyone could do it. Nothing is ever that easy.
Bob

 

[hazmat]

Here are the top 3 reasons why you hire a G.C.

Project Management skills - planning, budgeting, scheduling etc. (I think this differentiates the great G.C.s from the rest)

Network - having the contacts to get the good subs to show up

Knowledge - making sure it is built right


Have you considered pre-fab of some kind? Could be modular, timberframe, log home, SIPs etc. It minimizes all of the above three skills.

Someday I'd like to build my own house. I'd envision myself taking a leave of absence from work or working part time while doing it. There is no substitution for face time to get the subs to perform their jobs.

Case in point, on my investment property, the Electrician took 4 months to complete $10,000 worth of work. The plumber spent 7 days to complete $24,000 worth of work. I had a G.C. (paid him 20% markup on the subs/material + his labor). He did tell me up front that the Electrician was good & affordable, but slow. His crew didn't work a single full day the entire 4 months.

 

[MarkV]

Subs have three major problems. Drinking, drugs and gambleing. It's usualy one of those three.

Now, now Eddie, that isn’t all of us that work in the trades and call ourselves sub contractors. Many of us are just small business men like the barber or RV park owner with a family and a mortgage trying to get by. Some of us have been in business for many years, are well respected, successful and even considered to have a degree of expertise in our field. Like everything, there are good sub’s and bad ones.

Eddie’s points are well taken though and you can see each of his examples daily on job sites. An advantage to a GC that has been around is he has a group of the good subs that do his work.

MarkV

 

[gemini5362]

I had a G.C. (paid him 20% markup on the subs/material + his labor). .

This is an interesting statement when you talk about a 20 per cent markup is that 20 per cent above the statement he got for materials. I dont know about other places but around where I live all the suppliers give a 10 per cent discount back to the GC. I found that out when I did some work with my brother in law at the time and he was setting up accounts for his new HVAC buisness. The GC orders the material. The supplier suplies the material and invoices the GC. When the GC comes to pay the suplier they discount 10 per cent off of the bill or if it has already been paid by the customer they refund 10 per cent back to the GC. So did you pay him 20 per cent above the cost of the material or 30 per cent ?

 

[gemini5362]

Eddie I am curious when you issue a contract for building a house to a customer how many of them take your contract to an attorney to have him look at it. Do you have an attorney write your contracts or do you just do it yourself.

 

[dmccarty]

Nissan,

This is a ditto post. I think what I say has already been said but its worth saying again.

I know some things about building. I never seriously thought about being my own GC when we built our house. When we found our builder we knew we had found our builder. The wife and I litterally looked at each other and said we found our builder. I have talked with GC for years. I can think of two that I would have let build our house. An one of the two did build the house.

Remember you need to trust the GC. You will be married to him for along time. We spent years with our builder going through design and cost cycles before finally building. The GC is going to have a huge amount of YOUR money in his hands. If you have the slightest bad feeling about a potential GC. Run away. If the little man on your shoulder is ringing a warning bell. Run away.

A friend of mine got laid off from his career job. He went to work as the sales/office guy for a GC. I helped him buy and setup computer systems for the company. I interviewed the builder and I would not have trusted him to build a dog house. Another friend of ours who was involved with buying land with us and found a good GC. He built a quality house for them. He said something to me in passing one day the ticked me off. That comment cost him a contract.

Our builder had turned into a friend. His son and one of their workers has been going after some of the nits that needed to get fixed on the house. Its taken them almost two years to get here to do this. That sounds bad but the long delay is OUR fault. I think most GCs after a year would have told us to pound sand. I was hoping to work from home tomorrow when they would be here working in case they have problems. I'm not sure that will happen at this point so I'm sure we will just leave the door unlocked and let them get the job done.

I'm not sure its possible to find a builder like we did but if you can its worth the effort.

Eddie hit the nail on the head about some subs. I was listing all of the good subs we had. The list was too long so I'll go after the others. The framer was ok. But his crew barely spoke English. They messed some stuff up. The HVAC guy, well I won't get started on him. What he did works but he gave no thought about the impact of his work on other subs and on the house design. Our trim sub was an ex convict heroin addict. Real nice guy. His crew did great job. I think he has a handle on his problem but you never know. The dry wall guys where on Meth. They worked like maniacs. I work hard and fast but there is no way I could keep up with the pace these guys kept much less lifting the dryway. They sent me to town to buy drywall screws they said they needed. They paid for the screws. They never used them. Just wanted me out of there even though I was working outside the house. They wanted to be alone to smoke.

How do you get good subs? You have to know them and use them. I think it would be very hard to do this if you are not doing this as a full time job. If I'm a GC and I use Joe. You want to use Joe. Joe can work with me or Joe can work with you but not both. I'm going to get Joe since I have been giving Joe jobs for years and will continue to do so. You only have one job for Joe.

The Pro GC is very likely to get discounts on materials. You might be able to as well. We worked out a 10% off deal with HD. But that takes time to do. I spent many an eight hour period at HD picking stuff out and picking up. My wife did the same and we both spent a fair amount of time onsite. I had a full time job. She did not. We also had to fix/clean up our old house to get ready to sell which was very time consuming. I don't think we could have been the GC just because of time issues.

I'm sure there is more but its late and I'm tired.

Later,
Dan

 

[Nissan197]

Thanks for all the replys. There is a lot of things to think about. I am leaning towards finding a good GC with the expertise and pay him/her the $$ to deal with the headaches. I will do a lot of research to find a good GC and hopefully I will not be disappointed.

 

[EddieWalker]

MarkV,

I hope you don't think I was implying that all subs have problems. I call myself a GC, but I do plenty of sub work for other GC's. Tile, trim, paint etc. I don't do just one thing and don't claim to be the best out there at it. What keeps me going is that I show up when I say I will and I finish the job. Those two qualities are the most important and the most lacking in this business.

Most of the guys out there are very good, honest and hard working. But in a project as big as a whole house, you will have at least one who has a problem. Usually it's quite a bit more.

Gemini,

As of yet, I've never built a house for a client. I've built spec homes and I've worked on homes that were being built. It's something that I meet with people about, but don't push. I don't really want to do that kind of work either as I don't want to get tied into a 4 to 6 month project. I like jobs that I can do in a few days to a few weeks.

I have a basic form that I use for my clients. It's pretty simple in that it says they agree to pay for the work and I'll do it for so much money based on what we've agreed to. I also have a section that if it takes longer due to additonal labor, than that will be agreed upon before I start the additional stuff. Usually this is for repairs that uncover major rot, but is also pretty common in remodels where cabinets are removed or flooring is taken up.

I like to get paid on a regular basis and not let the bill get too high. Most of the time it's the thousand dollar point. I'm not comfortable with sombody owing me 5 or ten thousand dollars, so I ask for payment in stages. Home owners are the best at paying. GC are usualy pretty good, but other subs are the worse.


Here its common to give the home owner the bill for the materials and get a check from them. Then I pay off the materials with there check. I don't mark up and almost always get a discount of some amount that I pass on to my client. I'm paid for my labor, not materials.

If you realy want to save money on building a home, you can by designing it be cost effective. Doing allot of the labor yourself and paying attention to the products you use to finish it off with. I've seen $40,000 kitchens that were crap. Same with fancy bathroom fixtures. The average use of a whirlpool tub is three times. That's it, just three times. I know some people use therm all the time, but others never do. Carpet is the cheapest floor covering, but you can also get ripped off on carpet. Shop around on everything and take notes. Let the sales guy know your taking notes. Never trust what they say.

I found a granite tile that I wanted in a kitchen in a house I was flipping. It was $14 a sq ft. Home Depot had it for $12 a ft. Other tiles shops had it for around the same price as Home Depot,except for one. Same name brand, same color, but they had it for just under $9 a sq ft. At seventy sq ft, that was a huge savings!!! I've found that high dollar fixtures are a total waste of money. You might find a style that you like, but they don't work any better than the hundred dollar ones. In fact, I've had several $300 dollar kitchen faucets leak from Delta, Moen and Price Pfister.

Good luck,
Edidie