General Contractor Services
Skip Weahunt, actually Robert D Weahunt Jr, began contracting to
build custom homes starting in 1977. Since that time he has constructed hundreds of homes, apartment projects, duplexes and light commercial buildings. What makes Skip’s business different is his philosophy or business model. Most contractors price projects on what the value of the building will be worth when finished.
Skip does not, he believes that the client should only pay what it actually costs for building their new home, plus his fee for services. This is a method of contracting called “open book contracting”. The client controls the checkbook, not the contractor. The client has copies or access of all proposals and quotes and the option to use anybody they want for doing the work, as long as it does not violate Contractors License Law. Some clients have relationships with various trade people, like a painter or flooring contractor and want to use that person on their new home, no problem.
The way it works. Some clients come to us when they are just thinking about building and need help finding a person to create the building design and working drawings. We offer help from conception through finished home. We have a network of designers, Civil engineers, Structural engineers and other professionals like interior space planners.
Once you have a preliminary design, Skip will create a budget and quote you a fee for his services. If that is agreeable he will send an electronic copy of your plans to his network of vendors, like truss engineers, lumber brokers, as well as all the subcontractors for lists of materials and actual quotes that will backup exactly what the home will cost to construct. There are always items that come up unforeseen, but we always build in a contingency account to over any of those costs.
The bottom line is that we work as a team, not as adversaries. If you think about it, in most contracting the relationship is actually adversarial. The client wants as much as they can get for the quoted lump sum and the contractor wants to keep as much as he can of the quoted lump sum quote. Our proposed method allows the owners to keep any saving and on the other side spend however much they choose as the project goes along, but understand if you choose to spend more than what the line item is budgeted the difference must come from your pocket.
If you think about it, the cost of construction is the same no matter where the building is located, but the value or price per square foot can vary wildly. Since the advent of the internet you can purchase many of the needed part to construct a home anywhere for the exact same price. Lumber, concrete, roofing, and most other materials are commodities and are priced due to market forces. I can build a home in the Bay Area vs the Sacramento Valley, purchase and ship lumber and most other materials from anywhere within 100 miles. Local labor prices are a big variable due to the local cost of living, but even that can be circumvented by paying per diem for subcontractors to travel.