Our builder had no issue with us purchasing our own appliances, although we were a cost-plus build, so this may have affected his feelings on the matter? We purchased all of our appliances via aj madison.

Does either builder have a relationship with sellers of those items? Both times we built we used the business the builder recommended. The builder's discounted price was passed on to us when the builder purchased it. I recall all of the lighting was discounted 50% both times. I only found one light that was less expensive online. The builder had no problem with me ordering that light and shipping it to his house. I don't recall the discounts for the other items, but it was significant enough that we didn't really need to look around elsewhere.

If the builder is absolutely against it, there are 2 possible reasons. 1, he's getting the discount from the supplier, and he counts on that as part of his total compensation. If you go and buy your appliances elsewhere, he has to increase his price.

Or 2, he's had issues in the past where stuff is not delivered on time. So the electrician is on site ready to install the lights, and your chandelier is stuck in a warehouse 3 states away and nobody has the keys. He's got a relationship with his supplier and knows when he has to order it, and knows it will be on site when he needs it.

Personally, I like to buy my own. Having access to every possible option still doesn't give me exactly what I want sometimes. Being limited to one supplier would make me twitchy. But, that's why I'm building my own house, not buying a new house from a builder.

This is s custom builder, so I'm f the opinion that I should be able to price stuff out and go with the best price weather it's through him or online or whatever. I'm pretty sure he does have relationships with some suppliers but if he gets a discount on items and doesn't pass the savings on to us then I have a problem with it.

My builders actually preferred that we get our own stuff like light fixtures (hanging fixtures) and appliances.. Also any accessories like toilet holders, towel racks, etc.. Builder said that those items vary a great deal in price and he would rather we purchase on our own.. Tiles and doors however, must be purchased through "his guy"...

Our contractor gave us a price for the build. Included in the build price were allowances for kitchen and bath cabinets, lighting fixtures and flooring. We could purchase them wherever we wanted. If we went under budget he would give us a check for the difference and if we went over we would pay the difference to the place where we purchased the products so his check to them would be the amount of the allowance.

Forgot to add that the house build price did not include any appliances.
We pick out and pay for those.

We actually got good prices from Ferguson at the builders rate. I rarely found thing that Ferguson's price didn't beat.

This is s custom builder, so I'm f the opinion that I should be able to price stuff out and go with the best price weather it's through him or online or whatever. I'm pretty sure he does have relationships with some suppliers but if he gets a discount on items and doesn't pass the savings on to us then I have a problem with it.

If it's truly custom, I would argue that being able to use anything under the sun is part of the deal. Not just what's available through his supplier. And no supplier provides everything possible. A lot of people call it a custom build when what they mean is that you can pick from any one of their plans, and they let you pick out your finishes, and maybe move a wall over a few inches, etc.

There's still the concern about timing and availability. But he could offer a clause where if you can't provide it on time, then you pay to have the electrician come back later (or the tiler, or whatever.)

And sometimes the subs don't like working with material provided by the homeowner. Tile is the worst. You get a great deal on some natural stone tile. But it's on clearance because the tile isn't uniformly sized. So the tiler spends 3 times longer than he budgeted for trying to make it work, and you're still not happy because it looks off. Plumbing fixtures is another one they hate when the customer buys their own. This faucet looks the same as a Kohler model, but it came from China at a fraction of the price. It's a pain to install, and it leaks, so now he's having to come back to fix it.

As for pricing, he may have lowered his management fee knowing that he was going to save some money on materials. If he's not getting the money back on the materials, then he's being fully paid for his services. I wouldn't personally want to pay someone like that, I'd rather everything was more transparent. But I can't begrudge someone wanting to make a fair wage.

It's pretty common for contractors to add 10-20% to their materials, it's part of their compensation. But usually, they get a discount from their supplier. So they add on their bit, and it's a wash to you.

When we were exploring building, our builder was okay with us finding our own appliances and lighting. The builder's guys would install the lighting but all pieces had to be onsite and we agree the installer for the appliances would have to show proof of insurance. Ended up we couldn't reach an ultimate agreement for the build, so we bought a used house instead .... sad about that, but that's another story.

If you're willing to step up to the plate and bear the responsibility for your choices, pay the builder his markup for coordinating it all, and figure out how to store it yourself, then most builders won't have a problem. Where it gets to be a problem, and it always is, is you picking things that are poor quality, or that won't be on site on time, or are non-standard sized, and that their trades aren't familiar with. And then wanting him or his trades to vet your choices and store them. If he's going to do more work to be able use your choices, expect the priviledge of freedom of choice of materials to cost you more. The best contract structure for you would be cost of the materials plus a builder's fee. That fee won't be in the 10% range either.

If you are on a budget, and doing a fixed price contract, do any easy upgrades after the build, not during. That's lighting, faucets, counters, paint, and even cabinetry. Get the design's bones right first, and the decorative coverings are less important.

I can guarantee that anything we buy will not be poor quality strange sizes and his subs will definitely have worked with them before. I highly doubt they've never installed a Wolf cook top or Electrolux double wall oven or a Bosch dishwasher. I just know that I can probably he this stuff cheaper than he will.

I picked out my own appliances. Even though they were onsite when the build was occurring, they did not look at them closely. The Miele dishwasher was smaller than the standard size (I did not realize it when I purchased it). So they had to add wood trim to finish it off. The range required the electrical outlet be installed very low to the floor, they didn't check that and put it in the standard place, then the range could not be flush with the wall. So I can see why builders want to use what they are familiar with.

If an owner buys fixtures and equipment, the sub and GC will not get a markup on that material so they would be forced to increase their basic prices and fees to make up for it. In the end, you might be paying a premium for being able to search for and be responsible for those materials but you would probably never know for sure.

The best way to do it is to use the GC's wholesale price from his supplier if he will let you. I've only seen that happen on a Cost of the Work project where the GC and subs felt they were already adequately compensated by their fee on the rest of the project.

The worst case that I have seen was when an owner bought plumbing fixtures online that turned out to not be approved by the state plumbing code and had to be returned at a loss.So, when counting your potential savings always assume there will be hidden costs. The cost of building a house can be far more complicated and opaque than acquiring typical consumer goods.

On one memorable kitchen that I did for a builder where the customer was buying the appliances, the plans were for standard sized appliances. Which the builder communicated to the customer. The customer told the builder he was buying a "standard 36" cooktop, 30 wall oven, and a "regular" refrigerator that was in the original plans. The builder signed off on the kitchen plans, and didn't get the appliance specs from the customer. The customer bought a 36" rangetop, a steam oven, and a built in fridge. Needless to say, the cabinet design based on the architectural plans didn't work. The utility configuration didn't work. The cabinetry rework was in the 5K range, and the steam oven had to be resold, as we build on a slab down here, and no drain was factored into the plumbing. Thank goodness I was only the cabinetry supplier! The builder paid me for the new cabinets needed, and hit the customer with a pretty big change order for it all.

There's a lot to understand about how everything interacts. Communicate those specs of anything you are considering to the builder early on in the process. A 300 lb chandelier needs ceiling reinforcement to hang, not a standard electrical box, etc. Some things are easy enough to do if you plan for them. And not so easy to do after the order of operations has passed that stage by.

Our builder is very explicit about where they make their money and they don't have any markup on fixtures and appliances. They don't care where we buy things as long as we understand the schedule implications.

That said we ended up using most of their supplier since their prices were better or inline with the best I could do online or other local suppliers. Shopping ourselves let us push back on items that were priced out of line and we ended up buying a few things from other suppliers.

Agree with the point about schedule implications, which are not always obvious to those of us who are first-timers at this. I was often surprised by how early something needed to be selected because of all the details associated with how different things are installed. When we selected our appliances, we downloaded the detailed spec sheets and installation guides and put them in a Dropbox folder that we shared with our GC. He could look up every little detail at his convenience, and there were no (not many) surprises. He wasn't the most tech-savvy guy when we started the project,but even he had to admit that was really handy!