Build a house YOURSELF vs HIRE a General Contractor

Not many people realize how interesting but, at the same time, challenging it is to build a house!

A while ago I decided to build my very first house and act as a General Contractor (GC).

There were a few reasons for that:

1. I wanted to save some money by being a General Contractor and hiring subcontractors myself.

2. I wanted to save time avoiding possible delays working through the 3rd party - a hired General Contractor.

3. Eventually, I did build my house. It took 1 year more than was planned and increased the cost of construction by 1/3rd of the initial budget.

At the end of my “hardest experiment” I realized that It was definitely worth hiring a reliable General Contractor.

1. General Contractors work with reliable subcontractors and know many of them. One of my struggles was to actually find subcontractors and make them come and do their work. Good GC doesn’t work with unreliable subs, so you don’t have to deal with them personally either. This alone can eliminate delay time and saves your money if the right subs do the proper work from the start to finish.

2. GC can save you much more money than you pay for his service.

• GC usually has some good discounts in the construction materials stores.

• GC gets discounted prices from the subs due to the volume of work he provides to the subs.

• GC can decrease “waiting for subs time”. Idling time generates extra expenses.

3. GC knows the construction requirements of your area so that you don’t have to learn everything from the beginning and pay twice for your mistakes.

4. Your house needs to have several inspections throughout the construction process. Someone needs to meet the city inspectors at the site while they check the building process. If you have a full-time job, there is no way you can dedicate your time waiting for the inspectors to show up. That’s where GC steps in again.

5. General Contractor has a liability insurance which often times required by the city to obtain the construction permits. This alone can cost $2,000+.

Despite all the "must-haves" and "need-to-dos", building your house can be very exiting journey if organized well.

The tricky part of this journey is to deal with unreliable subcontractors, purchase a lot of construction materials from different stores, learn all the building requirements of your area, handling several inspections and be patient with the waiting time.

At the end of the day it’s always better to hire the professional to do the work right, keep your time and peace of mind.

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