Why I Got my General Contractor's License
I recently obtained my general contractor's (GC) license. A general contractor is a person who is responsible for overseeing a construction project. To pull permits and build, you need a GC license. We previously outsourced another GC to pull our permits while building the projects ourselves. I figured if I obtained my license, I could save us costs and earn a bit of extra cash.
The Why
The infrastructure was already in place for me to fund and complete development projects. I also had many deals in the pipeline. Development, however, is a slow process, and you can go an entire year without receiving a paycheck. While building my projects, I realized we were paying our general contractor an excellent wage. He is terrific, but at the end of the day, he was pulling our permits while we did most of the work on the field.
When the baseball season concluded last year, I knew I wouldn't go back to coaching. I was going to focus on real estate development full-time. Since I no longer had my baseball salary, I had to figure out how to earn walk-around money: The money that keeps you afloat from day to day. As a result, I signed up for GC classes because I thought getting my license would be easy. The journey was more challenging than I initially expected.
Requirements
There are several requirements that you need to obtain your GC license, but the main obstacles are:
Passing the exams
Obtaining the experience
Passing the exams
There are three exams that you need to pass
Business and Finance
Contract Administration
Trade Knowledge
The exams are open-book, and each question can come from 19 different books. Additionally, you need to be able to read plans and have general construction knowledge, as some of the questions will require it. The tests ranged from 60 to 120 questions, which took 4-5 hours to complete. Once done, you must obtain sufficient experience, which, in my opinion, is the more arduous activity.
Obtaining experience
There are three levels of general contractors:
Residential: Allows you to build Residential properties up to 2 stories
Building: Allows you to construct Residential and Commercial properties up to 3 stories
General: No limitations
You will have to apply for these licenses based on your experience. Unfortunately, I had no experience with commercial buildings of 3 or more stories, so the only license I could qualify for was the residential license. I can upgrade my license to General after four years of having my Residential.
To qualify for experience, you must show and prove past responsibility as a laborer or foreman and check all the boxes that the state requires. Below is an example of the application requirements.
What I learned
Before getting my license, I only had project management skills developed by managing my construction projects. In reality, most of my knowledge was on the financial side and how to structure and finance the deal.
The journey to get my license forced me to learn the following
Plan reading
Scheduling
Estimating
Material knowledge
Safety knowledge
In-depth Project Management
The entire experience was more challenging than any class I took in my four years of college. It was six months of studying every day. Although the test was mainly retrieval based, it is still a lot of information to take in.
Now that I have my license…
I can build residential structures anywhere in Florida where I can pull permits and assign subcontractors to carry out the work. I will use this to take over our new construction projects.
Getting my license has also allowed me to open up my services, where I can team up with my investors to build investment properties as their GC, saving them time and money. Below is an example of the types of properties that we offer
