Should You Be Your Own Contractor While Building A House? Check It Out!

Building a new home is not child’s play; it requires a lot of involvement as well as investment. It is possible to be your own contractor and save money. But you need to first evaluate if you have the time, and organizational and business skills, and technical knowledge to get the job done.

Should you be your own contractor?

If you’re highly organized and a good business person, have the time and energy and have at least a general idea of how houses go together, this is a viable option. You must also be willing to put in the necessary time to come up to speed on permits, estimation, scheduling, contracts, insurance, and job-site management. Additionally, you need to put in a fair amount of time overseeing the job. In reality, your most critical role is in the planning stages: permits, finalizing the plans and specifications, selecting materials, budgeting, negotiating with suppliers, and scheduling the work.

If you decide to be your own contractor, you need to decide whether you are ready to take on the role, the risk, and the responsibility and do an honest self-appraisal and hire the people you need to fill in your weak areas. That could be a construction manager, a designer or architect for design and specifications, a lawyer to help with contracts, and various experts such as engineers or consultants to help with areas you feel out of your element. Sometimes one or two hours of consultation with the right expert can save you thousands of rupees and a lot of headaches in the long run. However, don’t underestimate the time and effort required for this job and the many pitfalls that trip up the unwary as well as the veterans on construction projects.

Listed below explains about why you shall be your own contractor and why you shall not.

Pros of being your own contractor

1. You are in charge of your destiny, you will have full satisfaction of building your own home.
2. Savings of 10% to 15% of construction costs (if everything goes well).
3. You maintain full control of the project. This gives you a better chance of getting exactly what you want.
4. You may not be aware of every procedure, hiring good subcontractors will cover those areas. Thus, the overall job quality will be good despite your inexperience.

Cons of being your own contractor

1. Quality of work may suffer due to your lack of experience.
2. Real savings are usually less than expected due to unanticipated expenses and cost overruns.
3. The project will probably take more time and energy than you expect.
4. The job will likely have more problems, due to your lack of experience.
5. You will be absorbing most of the risk of cost overruns. The cost overruns for construction problems that occur during the job and after you move in.
6. Inability to control your schedule properly, causing costly time overruns and delays in project completion.
7. Complicated construction issues, requiring solutions that may be beyond your capabilities.
8. Banks may not want to give the best terms on a construction loan without a licensed builder on the job.
9. Being taken advantage of by shady sub-contractors. At times, just getting the labor to come to the site can be a chore.

So, what have you decided? Please share your thoughts below.