What to Do Yourself and What to Pay to Have Done Right

[Walter Key]

So, I was having an interesting discussion recently with someone and we have differing opinions. It got me thinking and I thought I'd pose the overall question to the collective brain-trust here on BP. So...

When you're doing a flip, what do you try to do yourself to save money and what do you hire out to a General Contractors to do for you. I'm of the opinion that unless you have a solid background in the renovation or construction and you have the tools to support the job; you should pay for a quality contractor to do the job right the first time. The opposite side of the conversation was, there's allot of smaller things that can be done by the investor to save money instead of paying a contractor to do the work. That side of the conversation tends to lean into the “I can have my kids help and it’ll teach them the value of a dollar, etc”. An honorable pursuit no doubt, but my counter argument was that the place to teach kids about hard work and money management is not on a rehab site while you’re trying to run your business. Time is money so paying to get the job done right and done efficiently trumps teaching life lessons or trying to pinch every penny out of a rehab buying doing work yourself.

Thoughts?