Speaking from experience....Not a good idea to hire family/friends for building a house.

Neverever hire family.

Hiring family or friends never ends well for either party!

Hiring a family member may appear to help with cost control but in fact it may eliminate it.

This post was edited by Renovator8 on Wed, Sep 10, 14 at 7:55

Your local builder will most likely already have a high quality group of subcontractors who are used to working together.

They are more likely to build you a nice home; and you will also reduce the likelihood of expensive mistakes.

Your family connection would have to come in and try to cobble together a team of subcontractors. The best subs will be harder to find and schedule.

Yes, we are very wary of hiring family. This member is a distant (family relation-wise) 'cousin'. It's more of a 'we know the same people'. We've lived in the area quite a while and know many different people that work in various trades, so we're able to help suppliment the areas that he'll need. He has a carpentry crew coming with him. We have an electrician and an excavator and a painter, as well as some abilities to do some work ourselves (Tiling, trim work, other basic work).

We (I) hope to use SIPs, and possibly ICF basement, and we're having difficulty finding anyone willing to learn more or consider using these techniques. I had hoped to do passive solar , but that seems an even harder aspect to accomplish around here.

I am concerned though that the local builder is thinking starting a project in October, at best!, is doable and good decision. He also confided that he failed to sit a current house properly, and as a result the house lays over the setbacks...he joked that the homeowner is a lawyer who volunteered to take care of it. Those are red flags, right. Not just normal building related issues that come up.

We had an opportunity to use a family member as a GC. So glad we did not- he would have been in over his head with the local issues and it would have surely caused him a lot of frustration (and probable cost overuns). As it is, our local builder who has built homes in this area for over 20 years has had to run interference for us with Architectural Control, city inspectors, utilities... you name it. Most often successfully, but it was hard going in spots, and we still have some hurdles to surmount.

[Just an edit to add- there must be a few other guys to pick from, yes? And, your screen name always makes me smile:-)]

An example was the community's acceptance of our metal roof. It had not been done here before, and the ACC questioned it on aesthetic grounds not knowing what it would look like. Our GC had built the lead ACC guy's house, and basically just said, "trust me". My cousin could not have done that as easily. My GC definitely has his own set of issues, but he shone in the local know-how.

This post was edited by musicgal on Wed, Sep 10, 14 at 14:46

Yes, that's definitely a negative for the family builder having to come from out of town, need to know local code and dealing with the locals.

We will bid out the job to others.

It is too late to reasonably consider starting digging this year? We're in MI.

lethargo-oh man. We broke ground Sept 2013...and endured THAT winter (live in Western MI). We barely had it buttoned up in time. I do recall shoveling snow out of the dining room. Not sure I'd do that again. Will it be too much of a bear for you to wait until spring? Unless your builder holds a nice tight timeline. We GC'd and had some delays with our subs but mostly the delays were weather related.

We hired some family, others that we knew locally. Most turned out just fine. A couple left a bad taste and it was added stress that there was a relationship there. Awkward at best.

In your case - especially with having the family member come from out of town I think I'd pass. What if something happens (life interruptions or who knows what) and they can't stay or have to make several trips back? Then you sit and winter doesn't sit for anybody. I wouldn't.

Never hire family. Just DON"T DO IT.

The only exception is if you are a complete hardass and don't give a rip about who you offend and can sleep at night if you piss off your entire family and they never will speak to you again.

If that is not you, then don't do it.

I agree with the others about hiring family. It really is to your advantage to hire locally ; especially if you have a short time frame. Dh and I built in the winter, in a very cold climate and it was slow at times and we had to have a portable furnace brought in when the mudding and taping started.
Our interior paint had to be done twice because the paint dried so unevenly due to freezing temps. We had started the end of August with the excavation and we didn't move in until March 1st!

Pprioroh, so you're saying my in-laws may NEVER speak to me again? ...that may be considered a tally mark in the 'for' column.

I think we've settled on starting in spring. Temps will be in the 30's this week and we don't even have plans yet!

Thanks everyone!

I know that most of the above comments are pointing you to use the local contractor, and I agree. My question would be why is it that the local contractor can start so soon? I know that he may be finishing up with a couple projects and the timing may work out good on his end, but I would want to double check to make sure that he is not busy for a reason.
I would highly recommend having 3 local contractors quote the project, along with anticipated start dates. It wouldn't shock me at all to find a 5% to 25% difference in quotes, but then you will be able to have more options and make sure you're getting the best quality project for your money. I would also ask the builders to provide three references each, one from someone they are working with now, one from someone they built a home for a year ago, and one from someone they built a home from five years ago. This will give you a good indication of how they are to work with (current customer), how they respond to warranty issues (one year customer), and how they're lasting quality is (five year customer).