Running 10+ Flips Without Employees: Subchunking Contractors

TLDR
Subchunking means giving one all-arounder the whole scope instead of hiring a separate specialist for floors, paint, trim, and drywall. You bundle accountability, get bulk pricing, and use a fraction of the bandwidth. I run 10+ flips with no employees because of this one move.

Table of Contents

The One-Man Operation

I have 10+ house flip projects running right now. I am the only employee in my company. No W2 staff. Wearing Crocs on most job sites.

People assume I am running between job sites 24/7. The truth is I have barely been on a job site this week. The system I use, the one that makes this scalable without hiring payroll, I call subchunking.

This works because I have figured out how to put one contractor on each project and let them own the whole thing. When I get it right, I am answering questions, not running crew days.

Less crew, more contractors. Less hours, more houses.

The Three Types of Contractor

Before subchunking makes sense, you have to know which type of contractor you are working with. There are three.

Specific job contractor. These are the guys on the billboards. hvac, electricians, plumbers. Roofers, siding and windows. They are specialists with licenses. You hire them when you need their trade specifically, and that is it.

Laborer. Hourly worker. You are the crew lead. You tell them where to be, what to do, and you supervise. This is not the solo house flipper model. If I am paying someone hourly and supervising, I am an employer, not an investor.

All-arounder. This is the backbone of my model. The guy who will do LVP floors, paint walls, install cabinets, hang trim, do drywall repairs, swap hardware. He will take out the trash if you ask. Not great at any one thing, but covers a huge variety of work.

Subchunking only works with all-arounders. That is the whole point.

What Subchunking Actually Is

Here is the hierarchy. You have a project: 123 Main Street. Inside that project are jobs: new floors, paint, drywall repair, hardware swaps, a new toilet, and so on. The scope of work is just a list of those jobs.

When I started, my instinct was to find specialists. Best floor guys I could find. Separate painters. Dedicated carpenters for trim. Hardware installer. Each job to the best person for that job.

That is wrong. That is what a lot of new investors do because it seems smart.

What you want to do is chunk all those jobs together and hand the bundle to one all-arounder. “Here is the whole list. Would you like to bid the whole thing?”

Example scope from a recent turnover:

  • demo and structural subfloor repairs in bathroom and main entrance
  • Prep and paint bathroom and kitchen cabinets
  • Paint doors, trim, walls, ceilings throughout
  • Install new LVP flooring throughout
  • New ceiling drywall in lower level due to moisture damage
  • Replace all fixtures (plumbing, lighting, door hardware, cabinet pulls)
  • Replace three broken interior doors
  • Replace toilet, install new shower hardware and valve
  • Interior carpentry budget for trim and door repairs
  • Final cleaning

No mechanical, no electrical, no plumbing in the rough-in sense. That matters, and I will come back to it. Every job in that list is something a skilled all-arounder can handle. Perfect for subchunking.

Three reasons this works better than specializing.

Accountability Bundling

Between each job on a scope, there is glue. Little things that do not quite fit neatly into any one job but still need doing. Hand this floor guy the list, and there is glue between his job and the painter’s job. Glue between the painter and the trim carpenter. Glue between the trim carpenter and hardware install.

Example. The trim carpenter comes in. Finishes the trim. Looks good. You pay him. He leaves. Then the painter shows up and says “we found some gaps in this trim that need repairs before we can paint.”

Now what? You already paid the carpenter. Good luck getting him back quickly. He will say he will be there, but it is weeks before he shows up. You end up picking up the glue yourself or hiring another guy.

Death by a thousand paper cuts. Small expenses, small delays, over and over. It wrecks you.

Subchunking fixes this because one contractor owns the full scope. The glue between jobs is his responsibility. It is priced into his bid. If there is a gap in the trim, the painter he hired or the guy he sends back handles it. Not your problem. Not on your schedule.

Accountability bundled into one bid beats eight separate perfect bids.

The Costco Effect

Costco gives discounts for bulk. Contractors do the same thing.

Think about the contractor’s situation. Most all-arounders did not get into the business to run a business. They got into it to do the work. Every job they take is maybe a week or two of work, then they are hunting for the next one. They hate hunting. It is the worst part of their week.

When you hand them a bundled scope that fills their calendar for a week or three weeks, you are taking that stress off their back. For that, they give you a discount. Usually not a written discount on the invoice, more like they accept the work at a number that is already a little lower than if you broke it up.

Even better: if you have multiple projects running, you can give them that comfort over and over. Ongoing runway. They get predictability. You get priority and pricing.

This is how I can run 10+ projects with the same two or three all-arounders. Everyone is busy all the time, which means everyone gets rewarded for being there.

Bandwidth Savings

This is the reason I can run 10 projects.

Every contractor you hire needs to get paid. If I split those 10 jobs on one house into 10 contractors, I have 10 people to pay. 10 people asking questions. 10 walk-throughs to approve work. 10 invoices to process. One house just ate my entire week.

With one all-arounder on the whole scope, I have one person to pay. One conversation. One walkthrough to approve final work. One invoice.

Multiply that across 10 projects. If every project has 10 subs, I am managing 100 relationships. If every project has one all-arounder, I am managing 10. Same amount of work happens. I have 90% less admin.

Pay periods matter here. Some contractors cannot afford to do the whole scope before getting paid. That is fair. They split the scope into pay periods. “Pay me after items 1, 2, 3. Again after items 4, 5, 6. Final after 7, 8, 9.” Every pay period requires me to show up and inspect, so I try to keep pay periods to two or three per scope. We negotiate that up front as part of the bid.

And I never pay ahead. The power in the contractor relationship is the money. Pay fast when work is done. Never before.

Pro Tip
If an all-arounder asks for 5+ pay periods on a single scope, that is a flag. It usually means he does not have the cash reserve to carry any of the work, which means he might disappear mid-project if another customer pays him faster. Prefer contractors who can do 2-3 pay periods on a normal scope.

When Subchunking Does Not Work

Subchunking works great on standard turnovers and cosmetic flips. It falls apart when you need licensed trades.

If a scope includes mechanical, electrical, or plumbing, those jobs need licensed specific-job contractors. An all-arounder should not be running new wires or replacing a gas line. You hire those trades separately and fit them into the project timeline around the all-arounder’s work.

So the real model on bigger scopes looks like this.

  • All-arounder owns the main bundle: demo, drywall, paint, floors, trim, hardware, fixtures.
  • Specific-job contractors handle mechanical, electrical, plumbing, roofing.
  • You manage the timing between them through a scope of work that sets expectations for all parties.

On the turnover I showed earlier, there was no mechanical, electrical, or plumbing in the rough-in sense. That let me subchunk everything into one contractor. On a gut job, I cannot do that. The phases of the project separate specialists in and out while the all-arounder moves through the rest.

Know when to subchunk and when to specialize. Subchunking is not the answer for every job.

FAQ

How do I find an all-arounder who can handle a full bundled scope?

Look for contractors who have worked with other investors, not primarily homeowners. Investors naturally push more variety onto contractors, so the ones who survive in that market have broader skill sets. Ask your local investor meetups for referrals. Check Facebook groups for local builders. Expect to try three or four before one sticks.

What if my all-arounder tries to take on licensed work like electrical?

Stop the conversation. Licensed work is licensed for a reason. You are liable if an unlicensed electrical job causes a fire. Tell them clearly: mechanical, electrical, and plumbing go to licensed specific-job contractors. They own the rest.

How big can a subchunked scope actually be?

I have handed single scopes with $50,000 to $80,000 of work to one all-arounder. Above that, you are usually getting into mechanical, electrical, plumbing territory, which means you are specializing anyway. On pure cosmetic and surface renovation, I would say $75,000 is about the max before the bundle gets unwieldy.

I am just starting out. Should I subchunk my first deal?

Yes. On your first cosmetic flip, one all-arounder for the whole scope is the right move. You learn how to work with a contractor, how to write a scope, how to do walkthroughs, all in one relationship. Easier than juggling five subs when you have never hired anyone.

How do I know the bundled bid is fair?

Compare it to what three separate specialist bids would look like. If the bundled bid is 15-20% under the sum of specialist bids, that is the Costco effect working. If it is the same or higher, the all-arounder is not giving you bulk pricing and you should either negotiate or go specialist.