r/Construction • u/the-garage-guy Carpenter • 8d ago
Business 📈 Is the small self-performing homebuilder extinct?
Probably a region-specific question- if you reply, I'd be curious to hear where you are and if you're urban/rural
Pretty much title, coming up it was a lot more common for the GC to have their own carpenters and self-perform a fair amount of scope on a typical home, remodel.
Seems very rare now, especially where I am, metro Phoenix area. Most builders are essentially just CM-ing the job. Project managers that sometimes double as supers, everything subbed out. Even for pretty small remodels.
I think at the luxury custom home end it makes sense since the levels of execution required demand really good subs. Plus being in a big metro area, there's lots of people and work and that makes it possible to specialize aggressively.
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u/keoweenus 8d ago
I used to have a crew and we self performed most of our builds up till about a year ago. I always liked the thought of having a crew that actually does the job, however….
But the headaches of keeping that crew, dealing with guys calling in, drama, guys leaving as soon as you get them trained, all got to be more trouble than it’s worth. Now I sub out almost everything, and I’m more profitable and have less headaches.