re: Spinoff: What are reasons not to build a house?

quote:

---

in other words, be the GC.

---

You'll get skull drugged by nearly every subcontractor.

Waiting 4-6 months for construction to be done (assuming no major delays), while also having to pay rent/mortgage at your current residence and your construction loan at the same time.

If you're looking at building in a neighborhood that still has a bunch of vacant lots left, hope you enjoy having constant construction going on around you for at least a few years. I built in neighborhood that was only about 1/3 developed at the time. Lost count of how many nails I ended up with in my tires over time. And had many weekend mornings that I was woken up a lot earlier than I had wanted to be thanks to construction noise.

This. Out of the plumbers, electricians, and HVAC contractor, one of them will repeatedly not show up throwing your time schedule into the trash, and another one will completely rip you off, likely causing you to have to bring in another sub to redo their shoddy work and eat the cost. The third will give you an ok deal, but not as good a deal as he would have given a real GC. Then, you get your margin killed by the fact that real GC's get discounts on all of their supplies, and you don't.

if you know what you are doing, what are the negatives of self-contracting? (other than time which your in essence trading for savings and quality you oversee)

i guess i mean, if you have or can manage a project, is it that hard?

quote:

---

You guys hire the wrong people

---

go ask your daddy if my comment is off based.

quote:

---

i guess i mean, if you have or can manage a project, is it that hard?

---

no

research your subs, be flexible with schedules (especially if you want the best guys), and get multiple quotes

Yep, with the huge shortage of tradesmen cUsed by the building boom in the plants, only the least qualified tradesmen who can't pass a drug test are still doing residential. A small residential job won't break their budget. They make their money via repeat business. The market of individuals self-GC'ing their home builds who would then recommend subs to other self-GCs is a tiny tiny insignificant market. They have little incentive to do a good job because most non-tradesmen can't tell great work from good work from bad work. The job is barely worth their time and not worth their effort.

To make matters worse, a lot of them are complete POS's (often drug addicts) who, even if you try to sue for breach of contract, just disappear and cannot be found to serve process on. Dealing with residential tradesmen as a non-contractor is a f$&king nightmare these days, even worse now due to the flood.

quote:

---

go ask your daddy if my comment is off based.

---

he will say that, yes, there are certainly shady contractors out there

but there are also plenty good ones

but people are cheap and often will just go with the cheapest quote instead of the best contractor

best contractors still aren't loyal to you over GC's who put their daily bread on the table.