I Never Hire General Contractors

TLDR
I do not hire general contractors because most flip rehabs are not as mysterious as they look. If you can manage an all-arounder, the licensed trades, and a few production crews, you save the markup, build your own judgment, and keep control of the risk.

Table of Contents

Construction Looks Harder From the Outside

A lot of people look at a rehab and think GCing the job is too complicated. From the outside it feels like staring at a plate of spaghetti without knowing what noodles, sauce, or meat are. You cannot even see the parts, so the finished thing looks impossible.

But once you know the parts, the mystery goes away. You do not make the noodles from scratch. You buy them. You do not make the sauce from scratch. You buy it, heat it up, brown the meat, and put it together. A basic rehab is the same kind of thing.

Most flips are not exotic construction projects. You are dealing with structure and framing if needed, then mechanical, electrical, plumbing, drywall, paint, floors, cabinets, tile, and landscaping. That is still real work. It is not magic.

The first reason I do not hire a GC is that the work is usually less complex than people think. It feels complex because they have not broken it into ingredients yet.

What You Actually Need to Manage

For most jobs, the center of the miy method is the all-arounder. This is the guy who can do a little bit of everything. He can demo, clean out, patch drywall, paint, install floors, hang doors, set cabinets, do trim, and handle a lot of the ordinary work that shows up on rental-grade flips.

That does not mean he is world-class at every trade. He does not have to be. The question is whether he can handle the level of property you are buying and the standard you need for that exit. Most of the time, one good all-arounder covers a huge part of the job.

Then you need the licensed trades. If the project has deeper mechanical, electrical, or plumbing work, get the right licensed person. Electrician. Plumber. HVAC. Those are not mysterious categories. They are just vendors you need on the list.

There are also a few production jobs where a specialist can make more sense. Roofing is a good example. A roof crew has price efficiency and speed because that is what they do all day. A full drywall job can be the same way. If you gut the whole house, a drywall crew may beat your all-arounder on both price and time.

So the real list is simple: all-arounder, electrician, plumber, HVAC, roofer when needed, drywall crew when needed. That is the recipe.

The GC Is Mostly Selling Assembly

A GC is putting those same ingredients together. He finds the all-arounder. He finds the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing subs. He finds the roof crew or drywall crew when the job calls for it. Then he marks up the assembly.

That markup can be real money. Ross says you might save 20% to 50%, maybe 60%, by managing the same ingredients yourself, depending on who you would have hired.

That does not mean the GC does nothing. He is managing some calls, schedules, problems, and handoffs. But as a flipper, that is the work you should be learning anyway. You need to know what to look for, what can go wrong, and when a crew is about to create a problem you will own later.

Nobody is going to care about your house as much as you do. A GC may care about doing a decent job. He may care about his reputation. But your project is still one project inside his business. For you, it is the deal.

Pro Tip
Nobody is going to care about your house as much as you do.

You Exponentialize Your Skills

Ross calls the second reason exponentializing your skills. Managing the work lets construction knowledge compound from project to project; handing the judgment to a GC produces a more linear learning path. The first time a problem shows up, it is slow. You miss things. You do not see around corners yet. You lean on the subcontractors you found and you work through it.

Then the next job is different because you are different. You have seen that problem once. You know what it looked like before it got expensive. You know what question you should have asked. You know what line should have been in the scope of work.

If you keep hiring a GC to hold all of that judgment, you still learn some things, but not the same way. You are learning through a filter. When you manage the subs directly, the feedback hits you clean. That is painful at first, but it is also how the skill grows.

This matters because construction judgment is not only a rehab skill. It affects how you buy, how you scope, how you talk to sellers, how you negotiate, and how much risk you see before everybody else sees it.

The GC Business Has Its Own Incentives

I have run a GC company that did several million dollars a year at its peak. The auto-transcript says “$5 billion,” which is almost certainly a transcription error, so this article does not assign an exact figure. No matter how much I wanted to do the best thing for every customer, the reality is that a GC is running a business.

That means looking for the next project. It means keeping crews moving. It means stretching subcontractors thinner than they should be stretched. It means missing details because the business has to keep feeding itself.

That is not a moral accusation. It is just the business model. Your GC goes to sleep thinking about his business. You go to sleep thinking about your house, your risk, your budget, and your exit.

That difference matters. Some problems are avoidable only if someone cares enough to think about the house before the bad decision happens. If a can of worms gets opened and nobody handles it correctly, the project can get pushed into a corner where the choices get worse and worse.

The more you understand construction, the earlier you can see those corners.

Construction Skill Makes You Better Before the Rehab Starts

There are four big focuses in a real estate business. First, find great deals. Second, write great scopes of work. Third, manage projects. Fourth, build better vendor lists.

Construction skill touches all four.

If you understand the work, you can buy better deals because you do not need a contractor to tell you every number before you know whether the house is interesting. You can walk the property with more authority. Sellers can feel when you know what you are talking about. You can see the path instead of just seeing a scary house.

Better construction judgment also makes your scope of work better. The scope is not paperwork. It is the map for the job. If the map is vague, the job drifts. If the map is clear, everybody has a better chance of staying on the same page.

And project management does not disappear when you hire a GC. You still have to manage him. It is the same as hiring a property management company. You do not just hand over the property and stop paying attention. If you do that, you end up at the back of the list.

So the choice is not “manage or do not manage.” The choice is whether you manage one GC or manage the subs directly. I would rather build the subcontractor list because it spreads the risk. If one GC finds a better customer than you, your whole pipeline can stop. If one sub gets busy, you can still move the rest of the job.

When Hiring a GC Makes Sense

There are valid reasons to hire a GC. I do not want people avoiding GCs because they think they are not allowed to use one. I want them to avoid GCs because they do not need one, then choose one later if it actually makes sense.

The first reason is licensing. Some places require a licensed GC for parts of the work or for the role itself. If local law requires one and you do not hold that license, hiring the right licensed GC can make sense.

The second reason is bandwidth. If you are getting such good deals that the extra GC cost does not hurt you, and your time is better spent finding the next deal, that can be a smart trade. The most important skill is still getting great deals.

But I think going through the pain first gets you to that future faster. Once you have the construction skill, hiring a GC becomes a choice instead of a crutch. You can pay for convenience without being blind.

That is the line. Do not hire a GC because construction scares you. Hire one only when you understand the work well enough to know what you are buying.

FAQ

What does MIY mean?

MIY means manage it yourself. You are not doing every trade with your own hands. You are managing the all-arounder, the licensed trades, and the production crews directly instead of paying a GC to assemble them for you.

Who is the most important contractor on this type of job?

The all-arounder; licensed and specialty crews cover the work that falls outside that person’s role.

Should I use licensed trades?

Yes, when the work calls for it. Electrical, plumbing, HVAC, and permit-heavy work should be handled correctly. MIY is not about pretending licensing does not matter. It is about knowing which parts of the job need which kind of vendor.

Is hiring a GC always bad?

No. A GC can make sense when licensing requires it or when your deal flow is strong enough that paying the markup is worth the bandwidth you get back. The problem is hiring a GC because you are scared of understanding the project.

Why does managing subs make you better at buying deals?

You get direct feedback from the work instead of learning through a GC’s filter. Across repeated projects, Ross says that compounding construction judgment improves how you scope, estimate risk, and speak with sellers before the rehab starts.