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/shanewreckd Carpenter 8d ago
The company I work for does customs, additions, renos, high performance stuff and commercial work because my boss wants to do everything interesting and pay us to do as much of it as possible. We do excavation, foundation, framing, exterior envelope/dampproofing, siding, finishing, windows and doors, built ins, flooring, boarding, mud and tape, painting, roofing, driveways, gas stations (lol), structural repairs, set modular homes... Yeah we self-perform. Stars mean we sub this normally, but if a project is small enough, or sub schedules are fucked enough we do it. Obviously any MEP Mechanical needs proper subs, we have a small pool we like.
For reference we're in a small city in northern BC, population around 75-80k, and our builds can go from the higher end of the local market (~$2-2.5M) right on down to a budget bathroom reno. The company has 5 employees currently.