[garry007]

Hey guys! New member here. Just stumbled across this forum but looks like it has a bunch of experienced folks on here.
I’m currently an office manager at a local veterinary clinic here in the Bay Area, CA. It’s a fairly busy clinic (we have 4-5 vets etc) so I take pride in my work and dedicate myself to the job. HOWEVER, I have such a yearning to leave soon and fulfill my passion of building homes.
I had the privilege to help my parents build their dream home, a 10,000 square foot behemoth of a home. And it was a blast. They had a falling out with their GC and we ended up doing an owner build essentially. After I graduated college, I came back and went full time on that job- no pay but just for the experience it was worth it. I would stay with my girlfriend or my parents at the time.

Anyways, I make decent money and have been saving up so that I am able to pursue something as a GC. I am in the midst of applying for my license and have most of referral letters lined up.

The reason for my rant is....am I crazy to leave my cozy job as an office manager and pursue this? Am I crazy not too. I’m at that point right now where I feel like if I don’t do this now, I’m just never going to jump in. The problem I’m having essentially, is how to get started? Properties here are so expensive in the Bay Area- that even I buy a plot- I would basically use up my funds for the land have nothing left for construction costs.
For reference, I have 200k saved up and good credit etc.

I’m just looking for guidance or where to start- my passion would be building and selling residential homes as I have some experience with that and would love to build someone’s dream home!
Anyways, I hope I’ll be able to get some sort of guidance here! Thank everyone in advance- if you got this far then you’re a trooper!

- Garry G.

 

[hdavis]

Don't even think about sinking all your working capital into one project. Probably $20-30K projects to start.

 

[Pounder]

You're entire experience appears to be helping to building one house, and that doesn't qualify you to be a custom home builder (actually, it doesn't qualify you to be a contractor). Also, with that resume the only thing you can compete on is price. That's doable, as long as you have a solid stable of subs that you can depend on that are willing to take low margin projects. My guess is you don't have those and the plan would be to get a project then try and figure out how to get it done. That's doable as well, but it sure as hell isn't fun or rewarding.

 

[MPE]

Do it, but not in the way you're thinking. Go work full-time for someone else for a few years. Learn all the things about the building process you don't even realize you don't know. At the same time start studying business operations, entrepreneurship, sales, management and leadership. Save all that money because you'll need it to survive when you finally take the plunge.