Divide and conquer among contractors?

[Alessandro Cardito]

I'm closing on a multifamily that I plan to househack- I'm about to interview contractors and was wondering if I should offer them the whole job or divide it among different contractors..the job can be broken down in 5 sub-areas

1 redo my unit

2 freshen up the 2 units I would rent

3 retouch common areas

4 retouch facade 

5 add a sunroom on the back of my unit

What are your thoughts? Better to divide and spread my risk (and possibly avoid GC overhead charges) or hope in economies of scale through assigning everything to one contractor?

[Laureen Youngblood]

I believe they are both right @Bill Plymouth and @Jim Goebel

Break it into the most immediate smaller single type project and try out your first contractor of choice.  If they work out well then you can continue to use them for the "next" small single project - until you trust them to take on a larger project or you move on to a different contractor.  If you have the timeline - this would work for the first two/three small projects.  Hopefully you find a great contractor and can work with them on the larger addition project.

If you have the time and are good with project management - you can definitely save some money by hiring the subs yourself and coordinating.  i.e. find a decent "handyman" small project guy, a plumber and an electrician and manage all three - maybe your handyman can do the painting, maybe you need to hire that sub also.  What you pay a larger general contractor for is the amount of time it takes to manage schedules, purchase materials and do quality checks.