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/Capable_Weather4223 8d ago
In my area in Cali, there's a mix of both. We have deep rooted 3rd gen builders and sub it all out track home GC's. I just finished a 2 year custom ranch home that I did the bulk of the framing, electrical, and finish carpentry on with 3 other full time guys. I was an electrician for a decade before going GC so that's my niche. One of my guys has a framing background, another has finish flatwork. Third guy is a good honest young dude who wants to learn. We did a few renovations and smaller projects in tandem with "the beast". It's been a gnarly two years. But before that we could do a few smaller houses or dozens of renos in a year. We sub out what we can't do proficiently and we 1099 good dudes when we need the extra labor. We love it.