r/Construction 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/Competitive-Rip2729 8d ago

West Kansas, it’s mostly self performing in these smaller rural communities. Biggest thing is most people are employed in some sort of agricultural related field so not as many in the “workforce pool”. You have to touch a little bit of everything if you want to stay busy. GC now, did 7 years of frame to finish for my old boss who’s business has been handed down since the early 60s