NJ residential Architectural and Construction Services

[Cris Z.]

Hello, My wife and I are in the midst of closing on a ranch style home that is approximately 2000 in square feet in Monmouth County. Given that we would like to expand the living area to approximately 4000 square feet (incremental 2k square feet) I am looking to hire an architect to help with the designs and get it built. Based on your experience, I would be curious to hear your advice on how to hire a good architect, if it's necessary for same company which provides the architectural services to also do the construction, and any recommendations. It's an expensive project and would like to keep it very budget friendly so curious to hear thoughts on the best method to hire architects / contractors. I have heard to not hire a contractor that outsources all labor as this gets costly. Does it make sense then to make sure architect can do construction work in house? Should I work with a smaller architect and builder to keep costs down or does that not matter? Also if anyone has any good recommendations to complete a big project and minimize costs as I know these things build up, I appreciate it. Also any recommendations on companies to use please let me know. I just started the process. Cris