Do you do contract jobs? I have a question

[Karen Margrave]

For well over 30 years we have done spec, new construction. From office buildings, office parks, subdivisions, office/retail condos, etc. We haven't really worked doing contract jobs for others. However; we have had people looking at our current projects, but needing a home in a different city, asking if we'd build for them. 

We handle all of our preliminary design, etc. and use an architect and engineer to sign of on them, and then we sub out most of the other work, except dirt work we do ourselves. 

How do you charge when doing a contract job, if someone purchases the land and wants to hire you to develop it for them (permitting, project management, etc.) 

[Emilio Ramirez]

There are several ways you could structure this. 

1. Price it as a designer and price it as a General Contractor. Two separate contracts. Charge the retail price that they would purchase it for. Build the profit into your construction costs and get paid in normal draws as design and construction proceed. It's the benefit of pre selling a spec, but the headache of having the client on board from the beginning. 

2. Another way would be to finance the build your self with a purchase contract to close a set amount of days after C of O. Then they close on the property. (not sure about this if they own the land?)

3. Charge a straight fee for your services plus the cost of work.

4. You could do a design build contract.

There's lots of templates out there. I would start with the AIA and Construction DOCs series. You can get both for free to review as drafts. I personally think they are both too cumbersome for single family residential, but that's just my opinion. How transparent you want to be with your costs is up to you.