House flipping tip of the week: Finding good contractors is a huge key to your success when flipping houses. There are 2 kinds of contractors, General Contractors, or GC’s, and Sub-Contractors. Most investors hire a GC who then brings in his own sub-contractors, oversees all their work and tacks on about 30% to your price.
This works great for people who have little construction knowledge or don’t want to spend the time ordering materials, checking in deliveries, writing checks on Fridays to subs and overseeing work.
My feelings are that most investors are doing this anyway and basically acting as their own GC, so shouldn’t be paying for one. Homeowners these days are even acting as GC to save the 30% and hiring subs themselves while building their new home.
There’s even a national company called U-BuildIt that sets you up with the list of subs for a fee. So, the key to the savings is finding the subs and managing them yourself. (more)
Another good tip for flipping is the get a mentor who can help you and you will fast track your career.
Good luck and Happy House Flipping!
So ive been reading into flipping house. and am very interested in learning this. my question is….. i am a contractor in pa, if i were to flip houses would i b much better off doing the contracting work myself rather than spending the money to pay someone for there labor?i man yeah ill make more money by not pay a contractor but would it be enough to conpinsate for my time doing this? please help this is somthing that really excites me and want to try doing
Hey Ross, it all depends on what your time is worth. Personally I’d rather increase my net profit instead of paying someone else although once your projects get bigger, or you want to do multiple houses at one time you’ll have to start subbing some stuff out. There’s no better way to start flipping than doing the work yourself, you learn what works, you can react quick to fix things and also you minimize your overall risk by having less money in the investment in case you dont hit your target sales price. Good luck and thanks for the comment.
Great post Tom. Thanks.
Great post Tom,
Lots of good tips to find contractors. I am just starting out here in Dallas but I will use your tips for sure..