using non skilled labor to fix up your houses

[Mike Mendoza]

I've been using college kids, just out of college, stay at home mom's, etc to work on our crew to help fix our flips.  We subcontract concrete, roofing, and exterior painting, siding, windows if we are doing the whole house or bigger jobs.  I've found its been a balancing act of choosing cost over quality, speed of completion, etc when choosing between a using GC's, contractors, and hired labor.  its been working ok for me as long as I don't have alot of turnover on my crew.  As my in house crew gets better and faster with each house it becomes better to use them vs. GC's and contractors.  please reply to this post about your thoughts or experiences using hired workers to fix up your flips or other properties.  

[J Scott]

I assume they don't carry their own insurance...do you carry liability and workers comp yourself in case they get hurt or hurt someone else?

Also, if you're providing tools/training, the IRS may classify them as employees, not contractors.  Be careful!