“My brother- and sister-in-law decided to be their own general contractor when they built their house two years ago. It did not go well. A house that was supposed to take 3-4 months to build took about 10. They generally got jerked around by most of their vendors, especially their excavator, who ended up charging them about $15,000 more than his original quote. Fortunately, they have a really nice family member who let them live in his house for about 3 months after their apartment lease expired and before the house was finished. I actually didn't see them all too much because they spent almost all weekends and nights at the construction site, coordinating vendors and doing as much work as they could themselves.
Of course, I don't think they read any books on the subject. Maybe that would have helped.”
Posted by: Patrick August 01, 2007 at 02:57 PM

I think Patrick’s brother and sister-in-law had false "great expectations" due to lack of knowledge of the building industry.
I know few professional builders who finish a CUSTOM home in 3-4 months. Tract home builders can do it, but owner/builders are building CUSTOM HOMES, using quality subcontractors and quality materials, Quality subcontractors are BUSY subcontractors and we custom home builders WAIT for them.
10 months to finish a quality custom home? Not too bad. As to the $15,000 extra from the excavator, I’m sure there’s more to the story. When you hire subcontractors by the bid method (contract price) as I recommend in my book, this type of cost overrun is avoided, or at least has remedy in a court of law.
Great expectations without foregone knowledge can lead to great disappointments.


Remember: By being the General Contractor (GC), determining building costs & hiring professionals (subcontractors) to do the actual work (That’s what a GC does), YOU can be your own General Contractor for ANY type of construction: New homebuilding to build your "Dream House"), room additions, remodeling older homes; Build log homes, kit homes, even renovate foreclosures. Since you are the "Boss," YOU can chose your own house plans or home plans, YOU can design your kitchen, YOU can decide to build "Green," build with Solar, Wind, geothermal heat pumps, or anything else YOU desire, and YOU can do it for a lot LESS!