Running 10+ Flips Without Employees: Subchunking Contractors

TLDR
Subchunking means giving one capable all-arounder the bundle of work they can lawfully perform instead of hiring a different person for every floor, paint, trim, and drywall job. Licensed mechanical, electrical, and plumbing work stays with the proper specialists. The bundle reduces handoffs, inspections, payments, and unanswered glue between jobs.

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, no hammer, and I am wearing Crocs. I even pause the walkthrough to point out my dog, Beyonce.

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.

The model uses third-party 1099 vendors and may also use virtual assistants or AI. It does not require building a W2 crew for every job.

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 specialize in a trade and carry a license where that work requires one. You hire them when you need that specialty.

Laborer. Hourly worker. You are the crew lead. You tell them where to be, what to do, and supervise the work. That is not the solo house flipper model Ross is teaching here.

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. Each property is a project. 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.

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.

With multiple projects, you can keep giving good all-arounders an ongoing runway. They get predictability. You earn better priority and pricing.

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. Each one requires me to inspect the completed work before paying. I try to push payments toward the end to reduce those trips, but people need to get paid. Whatever schedule the contractor needs gets negotiated into the initial bid before work begins.

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

Pro Tip
Never pay ahead, but pay fast once the agreed work is complete. A contractor asking for more milestones is not automatically a cash-reserve red flag; it is a schedule to settle in the bid.

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.
Do not be a damsel in distress.
This is my biggest rule: the investor builds the scope. Contractors do not automatically have an investor’s vision for the exit, so you must understand the work well enough to set the expectations yourself.

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.

Relationship Capital Changes the Rule

On the turnover used in this lesson, I broke my own rule. A trusted contractor wrote the entire bid and scope. I read it on camera, and it was right.

That exception came from relationship capital built over time. The operating tension is not soft management versus hard management. You manage with an iron fist while constantly building relationship capital. Strong relationships can buy bandwidth, but they earn that trust through demonstrated work.

FAQ

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

Match the contractor’s demonstrated work to the bundle, then use the contractor-profiling guide for the recruiting process. There is no magic number of candidates that guarantees the right person.

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

Keep mechanical, electrical, and plumbing with the properly licensed specific-job contractors required for the work and permits. Define that boundary in the scope before bids are accepted.

How big can a subchunked scope actually be?

I use no universal dollar ceiling. The bundle can be as large as the all-arounder can competently and lawfully perform; mechanical, electrical, and plumbing split out to licensed specific-job contractors.

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

Not automatically. Match the contractor structure to the actual scope and your ability to manage it.

How do I know the bundled bid is fair?

Compare the bundled number with what the same pieces would cost separately. I expect the bundle to come in a little lower because I gave the contractor runway, but I do not use one fixed percentage benchmark.