Want to Build my own House
No, you do not. BUT, in most municipalities you must fill out a form that shows the license information of all the sub contractors you plan to use. But as the homeowner, you have the right to build your own house.
It is doable if you are a “worker.” If you are someone who isn’t afraid to buckle down and make phone calls, send bills, get bills, make more phone calls, do a bunch of scheduling, etc., then you can absolutely contract your own house. But it is a LOT of work, and something you shouldn’t try to attempt along with your full-time job unless you work for yourself or have a REALLY flexible schedule and lighter work load.
Even building a house WITH a contractor means you’ll have to make 10, 000 decisions and field a lot of phone calls from him. So if you contract it yourself, not only do you have to make those 10, 000 decisions (many of which you don’t even know you have to make yet), you also have to do all of his billing, scheduling, and quality control.
My mother-in-law contracted her own house. But she’s a hard, hard, worker, the kids were out of the house, and her job was only 8 hours a week. Even then, she found a reputable contractor that she could pay by the hour just to consult with her to help her understand what steps to take when. So basically, at the end of each major step (post-permits, foundation, framing, plumbing, electrical, mechanical, etc.), she would call him, he’d come out for a couple hours and advise her on the next steps and who the sub contractors were that he’d use for those steps. Their agreement also gave her the confidence of knowing that if he trusted the sub contractors, she could trust them. So, lets say she paid him $100 an hour to consult with her, and he spent 2 hours with her 10 times. That’s only $2000 to help her with the proper order of scheduling AND to make sure she is using reputable subs. For a $200, 000 house she thought it was well worth her money.
