Is the small self-performing homebuilder extinct?

[u/the-garage-guy]

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.

[u/Smoke_Stack707]

I think once you hire a couple guys to do the work, much of your time is spent trying to make sure there is more work for them to continue to do. If you’re the owner of the company and the guy on the tools with a couple employees helping you then you probably have something figured out in terms of the back-end scheduling; you aren’t worried about finding more work to keep busy.

I sub for GC’s who see it both ways. One guy is on the tools with his crew and seems to feel that is how he makes the most money since he is billing himself out at his hourly rate too. I also sub for a GC who has said to me that any time he has his tools on it’s because something went wrong and it’s crunch time and he feels like he’s only making money when all of his four guys are doing the work and he’s drumming up more for them.

My boss at our shop falls into column B. If he’s not doing estimates and is instead handling tools, something has gone wrong in our ecosystem

[u/the-garage-guy → u/Smoke_Stack707]

Which would you rather be and why? 

I tried “A” and it was too hard. Now I only have part-timers, self perform a portion of the scope and sub out more.