Benefits of Being Your Own General Contractor

Updated On 28 May 2020.

The General contractor is the focal point of your entire project. He is the person who is going to manage everything from subcontractors to suppliers. He makes sure that your project is completed as planned. If you are experienced in the construction industry and have access to the necessary knowledge and skills required to manage and complete a construction project, then you need not go for a General contractor and be your general contractor.

By being your own general contractor, you can save up to 20% of your construction costs.

Being a General contractor for yourself is one of the most important decisions you are going to take while trying to execute your project. You need to take this important decision right at the beginning of your project, even before it is executed on the job site.

The General contractor is essential for the successful completion of the project. With the necessary mental makeup and skillsets, you can easily manage the project to bring it to a successful ending giving the desired results to you.

Below Listed Are The Main Benefits Of Being Your Own General Contractor:

You Will Be Able To Take Control Of Every Step Of The Project:

Whatever be the size of the project, many components are to be completed to make it complete. As the general contractor, you will be responsible for each and everything that is happening at the worksite. When you have engaged another person to work as your General contractor, you will not be involved in the project’s day-to-day happenings. Being your general contractor helps you have your say in each and everything that happens towards the completion of the project.

You Can Get Exactly What You Want:

If you take control of the project directly as your general contractor, you can assure yourself that you can get exactly what you are planning to achieve in your project. This may not be possible when you are working with another person as your general contractor. The person may have a different perception of the project objectives. His approach may be entirely different than yours, and there is no guarantee that his way of working will give the result you are expecting.

Usually, a person working as a General contractor will have his own experiences and working methods to accomplish a particular part of the project, and he will work accordingly. But you may want it to be done in another way to which the general contractor may not accept and go on with his way of working things.

You Become A Better Person:

A General contractor requires good people management, excellent financial management, and a good sense of everything required to complete a project and lead it to successful completion. Though you may not be having all these qualities, in the beginning, you will be asking a lot of questions to different people working on the project and get more exposure to every phase of the project. This will add to your mental acumen and even help you choose general contracting as a way of career.

Save A Lot Of Money:

By acting as your general contractor, you will be able to you save at least 10 to 20% of the project cost. Appointing a general contractor for your project involves payment over and above the actual project cost as his remuneration. Sometimes depending on the complexity of the project, the fees charged by a General contract will come to a considerable amount of the overall project cost. By choosing to act as your general contractor, you can save this amount of money which will bring down the cost of the project.

Save On Material & Other Costs:

Unlike a third-party general contractor working on your project, when you become the general contractor for your project, you can save a lot of money by perfectly planning the material purchase, subcontractor remuneration, and other routine expenditures you have to incur during the completion of the project.

You will be able to spend a considerable amount of time finding the best deals while purchasing materials for your project. Likewise, while appointing subcontractors and other people who work on the project, you can always spend time and effort to hunt for better deals than when working with a third-party general contractor. This will give a lot of money-saving on your project, and you will be able to complete the project within the budget and even save some more money.

You Can Do Changes As You Go Along:

When you are working yes the general contractor, you can be flexible in the project requirements. You can make changes to the basic project requirements as you go along. This is not possible with another person working as your general contractor, and once the requirements are discussed and finalized, they are frozen until the completion of the project.

When you want to make changes in a middle way, you may have to negotiate a new contract with him. This may not be possible at all times, and you have to be content with what you agree or disagree with without any scope for making changes during the working phase of the project.

Have More Choices Of Subcontractors:

The main function of a General contractor is hiring subcontractors and other people who will work on the project. By acting as your general contractor now, you can choose the right person for each phase of your project. You have an uncontrolled ability to look for the best skill sets available in the industry for a particular type of work.

But when you are engaging a third-party general contractor, you have to get contact with the person whom the general contractor is engaged to do the work. This may not always be good and give the expected results for your project, and still, you cannot ask the general contractor to do a particular part of the project with a particular subcontractor.

Get More Flexibility In Scheduling & Working On The Project:

When you are acting as your general contractor, you will be able to do and conduct the project as per your schedule. This is not possible when working with another person as a General contractor as he will be working as per his schedule. He will be primarily interested in completing the project and moving on to the next.

But when you are acting as your general contractor, you have complete freedom to schedule every part of your project as you want to give enough time and consideration to complete the components of the project in the way you want by giving enough time.

You can also wait for a good subcontractor who is engaged in some other project to get the best possible way of doing a particular part of the project. But this may not be possible with another person as the general contractor, and he will engage the person available then and there to complete the project. You cannot ask him to wait for the arrival of the subcontractor of your choice.
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Acting as your own is a General contractor that offers a lot of benefits to you. The best among them is the ability to save a considerable amount of money and complete the project as you want. Completing your project as your general contractor gives you a sense of pride and achievement. Working as a General contractor is not an easy job, and once you have accomplished this feat, this will add to your confidence, and you can get the satisfaction that you have accomplished the job of a specialist by yourself.

By deciding to act as your general contractor, you can make use of the time you have at your disposal and take your project into your own hands and see it completed the way you always wanted. Though working as a General contractor is not easy, you can accomplish it with the right type of planning, by knowing how to plan and execute things, how to manage people and motivate them to work as per your desire, how to manage finance and find the best rates available in the market.

By enhancing your ability to meet emergencies and surprises and coping with them, you can learn how to take your project to the next level.

With these, you can easily act as your general contractor and complete the project to your fullest satisfaction.

Tips On How To Save Money Efficiently By Being Your Own General Contractor

Handling The Construction Waste:

At every stage of the construction, the waste generated needs to be efficiently managed, you could opt for a dumpster, but you could save money spent on regular transporting of that waste to the garbage center by simply renting a dump trailer to store the generated waste in bulk and then you could take this trailer to the garbage center when it’s full.

Workers Must Mention The Required Tools In Advance

To avoid the workers from wasting their work hours in traveling to get the required tool for a particular task on a particular day instead, tell them to give a detailed list of required tools for required tasks beforehand only, which will save their work hours from getting wasted and save your money.

Keep The Required Materials Ready

When you know that the workers would require certain materials to do a certain task on a certain day, make sure there is no delay in the availability and delivery of those materials; this is another way to reduce the wastage of work hours and eventually save your money.

Assist The Subcontractors

The subcontractors are experts in their jobs; they do need assistance in doing minor tasks of the job so that they can focus well on the main tasks. You will have to approach the subcontractors and tell them to show you how the minor tasks are to be done. This will enable them to finish the work efficiently and even save your money efficiently.

Boost The Energy Levels

Workers don’t eat much when they into their work, but when they eat, they eat so well that they can do long shifts without eating anything. Whenever you feel that their energy levels are going down, just motivate them with some refreshments. Being their general contractor will develop your relationship with them and also will boost their levels of productivity. So, making small investments in refreshments provide better savings.

Relevant Resources:

8 Tips for Getting Started as a General Contractor
How Your Commercial General Contractor Can Help Reduce Costs