We GC'd our own house, and I cantell you:
1. You can save money (20% just for GC, more if you also do some of the work yourself), but only if mistakes are kept to a minimum. Also, you need to shop, shop, shop. Paying "Retail" for stuff at the normal builder's showrooms is unnecessary. As the GC, you should get the same price as other GC' PLUS the referall incentive! Also, Home Depot, Lowes, etc are typically competitive enough with the trade suppliers and willing to spend the time with an amatuer.
2. Make sure your construction loan has a long enough term. Your bank is sure to old you hostage if the term comes due and the house is not done. Hostage to the tune of another 1% fee to extend 3 months. Serious profiteering. Personally, I'd negotiate a 2-year construction loan with any extensions pre-negotiated in writing. Maybe adjustable rate, but no huge fees to extend.
3. Don't be tempted to do all the "easy" stuff yourself. The easy stuff isn't expensive and you will be slower and even less productive than the pros at it. You will end up "making" like minimum wage on your time.
4. Changes kill the schedule and the budget. Make sure your plans are exactly what you want and are fully detailed including all fixtures, electrical placement, cabinetry, heating plan, etc.
5. Get as many recommendations as you can for subs. Our best lead was form the lumber yard for a framing sub. He was well conencted and well-respected in town and gave us a bunch of other leads.
6. We got a lot of leads for subs from touring parade-of-homes. if your not building your own house, you might not notice it, but they typically kick in part of the fee in echange for having their company name on the sign or on the bruchure. One builder bragged he had the best and cheapest stucco crew in town. he was right and that crew was happy to work for us as well.
7. Personal appreciation goes a long way. I don't know anybody who doesn't like feeling like somebody cares. Don't spend all day jabbering with the workers when they should be working, but at the beginnign or end of the day, be sure and take a chance to express your appreciation of their hard work. Doin't just talk to the supervisor - make every crew member feel appreciated. Something that went over big on our prject - we kept a fridge stocked with pop (Mt Dew, of course) on site for the workers. Anytime anybody worked overtime or on a Saturday, we either cooked or brought food. There was cold beer in that fridge too with the understanding it was just for one at the end of the day. The cost of the pop was maybe $100 to $200 over the course of the project. We easily got that back in extra little touches and refinements that would never appear on any spec or bid.
8. Being GC is a full time job. My wife wasn' working, so we split the work between her doing the bid-gathering, scheduling, accounting, check-writing, bank-draw prep, and some of the shopping. I answered all the technical quesitons and did all the gopher work. Plan to spend a lot of time on-site (we lived on the lot already in another small building during construction, so I was on-site every morning for at least an hour, and my wife was there all day).
9. Many little crappy things fall into the GC's lap. Most pros would have a gopher or two to take care of these things. If you can do them yourself, then you are all set. Otherwise, find somebody handy you can hire on a sporadic basis. For example, erosion control, site cleanup & dumpsters, moving other trade's stuff out of the way, storage of materials, running for misc. supplies, returning incorrect or broken stuff, etc.
10. Don't antogonize the building inspectors. Whatever they tell you needs to be corrected, make sure you understand what it is and get it fixed and have them come back. Keeping them on your good side is important for when you have time critical inspections like concrete forms set in the morning that need to be inspected late morning (t before lunch) for an afternoon pour.
11. You can often open an account with supply houses even without a contractor's license. Just call and say you want to setup an account. They will fax you a credit application. Fill it out and send it in. Don't lie on the space that asks for your license number - just leave it blank.
12. Get your own umbrella policy for the project. Make sure all your subs send you proof of insurance. Have their agent fax it to you.
13. When we built, a fax machine was a must. Nowdays, e-mail might be more in use, but I bet you will still want to have a fax machine. We used one of those services that forwards the faxes to your e-mail.
14. Besides trying to work with subs on schedule, the other thing that will slow you down tremendously is trying to do too much yourself. For example, knowing something about electricity, I took on both the wiring and heating rough-in for our whole house (in MN, an owner-occupier can do their own electrical without a license). Heating took me a month, and wiring (power and low voltage) another 6 weeks, and meanwhile everything on the interior came to a standstill. Problem was, I was doing it evenings and weekends. Maybe 20 hours per week. I was maybe 1/2 to 1/3 the speed of an experienced electrician, and there was just me. A wiring crew would have brought in 3 or 4 experienced guys and had it done in less than a week. In comparison, plumbing rough-in done by pros, took about 3 days, for example.
It works best to have yourself committed to only one smaller piece during each pahse of the prject. I should have picked one rough-in trade to do myself, not three. After that I learned. I did the railings, but we hired a guy to put in the stairs. I installed the appliances, but we hired a guy to put in the cabinets, etc. These arrangements also gave me somebody experienced to work with.
