Hi everybody,

We have a land in Los Angeles, steep (45 degree) hillside, construction + structural documents are done, approved by LA Building Dept. We have received a bid from a General Contractor reccomended by our Artchiect, but it's too high for our budget. The construction cost is $391 p/sqft for a 2007sqft house on a steep hillside. We have heard from friends who gave up and sold their properties, as the bid came up to $500p/sqft for a 500sqft hillside addition.

We have spent 20months working with the architects on this house, and years hoping and saving up to build our dream modern house (since it's too expensive and hard to buy a 1600sqft modern in LA for $1million). We do not want to give up that quickly.

We are currently trying to cut down costs, and as sad as it may be, seeing all the cabinetry, tiling, flooring, window wall system, changing to the cheapest method, we still don't think it will meet our budget.

Well Fargo Bank, reccomended that we hire a Project Manager, to manage the construction, and skip the General Contractor. This way, we pay for all the insurance and overhead that a GC would, and it will save us maybe $100k. I am guessing we would end up having to do alot of the GC work ourselves, besides handling our 50 to 60hr week jobs.

Do anyone of you reccomend us doing it? Our architect says that we need skilled subcontractors as building a modern house requires perfection (eg drywall etc), and he was the GC of his own house before, and as a professional, he would never be his own GC again.

In case you wonder, we did an estimate with this GC a year ago based on the design schematics, to make sure it meets our low budget. But a year has gone by, not much changes, but adding 2 structural steel, and the final bid came out to be 80% more.

What do any of you think? Otherwise we will have to sell the land and plans, and succumb to buy a cape cod, or a horribly design modern house.

Thanks for reading this ranting essay!