When I act as a project manager on a custom home in the Toronto area I expect to be paid $9-$10K per month. I've been a licenced new home builder since 1990, renovating since '81. You can always get less experience for less money.

ehoops
I really feel for what you're going through. We found ourselves in the EXACT same situation at about the same stage of build with about $300k over budget.

DH was ready to fire GC too. At the time, our lender and our lawyer advised us to work it out with GC since we weren't in the position to GC ourselves (business commitments). They cautioned us that getting a new GC who was worth anything might have several other builds going on which could delay us a year or more. Also a new GC might come in an not agree with how something was previously done.

Though our GC is an excellent contractor he too is a lousy businessman. In hind sight DH thinks we too would have been OK by doing it ourselves. Being in California (our codes seem strick compared to some states) it might be harder to GC a build half way through it. But I wish you luck and hope that you can find a consultant as worthy as Worthy

Kats- I know I've seen your posts but I can't remember off the top of my head where you are with your build.
Worthy- Thanks a bunch for the estimate for a consultant.

ehoops,

We moved into our home on August 8th. Doesn't mean the house was finished...we just moved in!
I posted a few pics a little over a week ago and plan to post some more next week.... b/c....DAH DAH....
"we got sod today"!!!!
(I tried to link the Banana happy dance but there's not that many hours in the day! LOL)

Kats, I thought you were in but wasn't sure. Congrats. It is reasuring to hear that people have made it despite some real building nightmares. I'll keep you all posted.

Oh my!!! You have just described my worst nightmare!!!! That is why I am having so much trouble actually signing a contract with someone and committing financially to this. It is so much easier and fun to be doing the dreaming and planning part. It is free, for the most part!!!! I am probably out about 11K for my architect's fees, but other than that I have not bit the bait. I have found a project manager that wants 75K fixed fee to help with our project. It sounds like a pretty good deal, but he won't commit to helping with the budget until we sign a contract. If we choose not to go through with it, we still pay him like 20K. How the heck do we know if we can build the darn house without the budget and specs? That is the nefarious vague area we are dealing in now. He, of course, is "guesstimating" about what the house will cost, but 100K would swing the project out of our complete range to afford. 300K would kill it dead! I just don't want to go with the fixed cost GC that doesn't reveal his costs to me or his overhead. I want to control the project or copilot and but not sure I feel I can tackle this completely on my own.
I'm not sure if I'm glad I read this post or not!!!! ARgh!!comfortdog

ehoops, I am so sorry for your experience.
Have you finalized the "firing" of your gc? If yes, then I would try and make some sense of what needs to be done when, just to keep the house building in progress.
then, as you have hinted, move in the direction of a consultant. Do you really need one? How confident are you in the area and knowing other people building that could recommend the various tradespeople to complete the job?
Start your list of contacts for trades people and interview them.
Do you have the time to do this yourself?
You need to ask yourself all of these questions to determine the best course of action.
again I am sorry for your situation, but you can get thru this. Get your pen and paper out and start working out the options.
Best of luck and pls keep us posted.