I did it and it was not that bad. You just have to stay on top of it everyday. It is also good to have a little building knowledge. I framed houses for several years when I was younger so I knew what to look for. If you build out of the city limits you have no inspections which makes things cheaper and easier. I say go for it if you have a little knowledge and time. I saved alot of money doing it myself. I was able to get a heck of alot bigger house than I could afford if a builder would have built it. Here is a few pics of what I built.

Side view.

Boat Garage.

Back of house.

If you are in Ms. you should talk to Jassman. I think he builds only high-end, but probably knows someone good. He is in La. and always on the forums, esp. AT.

Greg

I built my house with my brother in law as the general, but I did most of the coordinating (by plan) the wife was fed up, but i knew how much money i saved. also I'm an anal retentive engineer and knew what i wanted.

around here, a young, but good builder will charge 10% for general contracting and keep the material kickbacks form the lumber yard. my brother in law gave me all the discounts (14%) form the lumber yard and charged me a measly couple grand for some key coordination. how could i complain, he also roughed, trimmed, and roofed the hosue for a fair quote.

the house was also my dream home whos design I started literally in highschool!!!!. and spent the last three years refining. I could not have done it without a lot of family and friends help like waterfoul.

my suggestion. pick something that you really would lieek in the house and learn how to do that yourself. you will have pride in what you did and maybe have something you might have passed up if totally paid for.

I built my dream fireplace 12' wide by 22' high fieldstone. with wood burning heatllator system. took literally a month and half for me to totally finish. but looks awesome and I saved $6,000 in labor (now I know why)

I also did 1400 sq ft of pine tongue and groove cathedral ceiling
and about 1/2 of the wood flooring. I first build my 36x56' pole building for the boat and cars. that took most of the summer.
but i was, how you say, DRIVEN, borderline obsessed with this life long dream. every night until 12:00 or 2:am. ask Waterfoul...

but it was worth it. jsut finished landscaping 1 week ago, 1 week ahead of my memorial day goal.

We are building two homes right now, ours and a spec house. Both the Missus and I work fulltime, plus a new baby. We are using a General Contractor. We write checks and are on the jobsite nearly every evening - that's our part of it.

My contractor charges a flat management fee of about $6.00/ft. Paid out in even, monthy draws. Therefore, his incentive is to complete the project sooner so that he gets his money sooner. Also, I write all checks to the lumber yard and other suppliers. Thus getting all discounts.

Cost plus contracting has some inherent risks for the homeowner. The percieved incentive is to put higher priced labor and material in to the house so that they make more money. Not that they do it, but that thought is in the back of your mind.

I personally do not want to contract myself. We have too many irons in the fire as it is and it takes forever to get anything done. Plus I agree with an earlier post that you will pay either a GC or pay the subs/suppliers because of lost discounts. Why pay the same or nearly the same money for more headaches?

Bikinilover.........nice pile of bricks you got there!


97BossHammer............Dude, you need to get your prioritys straight. Buy a little shack and dump all your money into a 40' or bigger boat!!

HAHA......I already tried that, she didn't bite. Now I'm going after the house

97BossHammer,

The bottom line is that if you are planning on acting as the GC you will need to spend a substantial amount of your time managing the project, something you said in your original post that you don't have an abundance of right now. Even if you could devote the time to the project it will take longer to build than if you hired a GC to do it. A lot of the cost savings could be lost with the increase in the length of your constuction loan. Remember, time is money.