Depends on where you are building. If you pull permits, you won't be able to pass your final plumbing inspection, which means no certificate of occupancy. Even if you live out in the middle of nowhere and don't need permits, it may be hard to find a builder willing to do that. You run into problems with being able to warranty the house and the process taking him longer if he has to wait on you to finish things (there may be parts you want to do that can't wait so he can get other things done). In the part of the country I am in, any good builder is busy and typically won't mess with something like that. It takes more time, has the potential to cause a lot of problems, and just isn't worth it.

Your best bet would be to act as your own GC. You can build at your pace, hire all of the subs, and do the parts you want.

Do you plan on having a mortgage?

Cash build with no inspections only.

Yes, mortgage was the first thing that came to my mind. If you're financing any part of your build, you'll have trouble with the bank agreeing to your suggestion. They want the project FINISHED because they're always thinking, "If we take posession of this property, can we turn it over and sell it FAST?" And unfinished doesn't sell, so IF the bank is involved, no.

We had a construction loan and did a lot of DIY work on our house. We acted as our own GC. That being said, we did slow down the process. Probably by 2-3 months. So our delays probably cost us about $2500 in interest payments. We still came out ahead if you figure that our bids for painting alone were around 10k for the interior, exterior and finish trim. We did it ourselves and saved a lot of money but that doesn't count the hours of time it took to do it while also having full-time jobs. We did painting, trim, insulation, floors (except carpet in the bedrooms), cabinet and wood work finishing, and all clean up which was a constant time-consuming job in and of itself. Am I glad we did it? Yes. Would I do it again? Nope.

We did this in '97 when we built our house. We had a very good, very flexible small-time small business owner custom builder as GC. We designed the (size and layout and elevations of the) house, he did the structural planning and tweaked the plans to make sure they met code, didn't have any incompatibilities such as door swings interfering with something else, window sizes and specs to meet fire code, etc.

We both quit our jobs and moved local from cross country. We bought a trailer and loaded it with tools, food coolers, etc. and drove it 7 am every day to the jobsite just like subs would, worked a full day, dropped into bed exhausted every night. We were extremely fortunate in that we were able to live with in-laws during construction and came home to a large hot meal every night. (They later moved in with us as their new house was being built, although they did not do their own DIY construction. The were able to sell their existing home to clear them for the construction loan and live rent free during construction.)

We read to know techniques and code extensively. (We were both from fairly advanced DIY households as our backgrounds growing up, BTW.) We did the entire electrical system, including 400 amp service - everything from the main panel boxes out (the main line and panel boxes were professionally installed). Our house has about twice the electrical bits (number of outlets, fixtures, controls, etc.) as a standard custom home of lower range fully custom homes. We went through all the phased inspections. In our build state, at that time we were able to do all these things legally without being licensed subs in a given trade.

We installed a copper cable lightning rod system and antenna in the attic for television.

We installed our central vac system entirely - PVC runs, unit, electrical, the whole system. We did all our own computer and phone systems, including runs to every room from basement to attic using large bore conduit so new technology could be run as needed through these channels (at that time it was mostly pre-wireless and many wires were converting to fiber optic cable, etc so you didn't know what the prevailing technology might be in 5 years and we wanted to make sure we could change it as needed). We did all our own finish flooring. I installed the hardwoods over a couple weeks. We mail ordered carpeting from carpet mills down south then hired a local installer to put it in. I did all the tiled floors. I did several areas of finish carpentry such as drywalled nooks that were then trimmed out and bead board backed, finish paneling over the plain drywall kitchen bar wall and finish paneling over drywall knee walls in the bathroom, etc.

We installed many of the final appliances (anything non gas - that was done professionally) and finishes such as tub surrounds (corian panels), bathroom accessories (toilet paper, towel bars), etc. We put in all our own electrical light fixtures, fans, etc.

The builder did the entire site prep, entire foundation, entire framing and roof, entire mechanicals, drywall, and finish carpentry and painting. The GC did plumbing rough in and most finish except accessories. We did the final grading, seeding, and all things yard thereafter. We had a road base driveway several years and later had a paved driveway installed. We hired several finish carpentry built-ins after a few years.

We saved approximately 1/3 - 1/2 the cost of our house doing this, ordering stuff online or direct from the manufacturer as we caught sales, and spending a few years ahead of time gathering parts such as light fixtures, plumbing fixtures, mirrors, tiles, etc. at excellent prices.

A HUGE benefit was that, due to this, much of the build cost was not in the GCs contract so the contract price of the house was also about half the actual and this was the number that went into the records for property tax purposes! In our location, on new builds, they use the construction contract price as the value of the home for tax assessment purposes.

Because we did this, we were able to get more house and get the house paid off much sooner. We owned the land outright, had a hefty down payment by today's standards, and used a construction loan.

I'm not sure it would have helped that much if there were not TWO of us working full time doing this (many times you needed two people to get a job done, such as run wiring and test, etc.) and FULL TIME and we were both fairly well versed in basic construction and rather fearless to DIY just about anything (except electrical main service, gas main service, high roof work).

I would NOT recommend trying this UNLESS you live in a location where this is legally possible, you have a professional builder who is on board with this, and you have an extensive background in DIY and at least a helper on site, and can work full time everyday to get the job done and you really, truly, understand that there are REASONS for why building codes exist and why it is important to know them well and follow them correctly. Doing DIY construction here and there between full work days elsewhere would be slow and tiring and probably not work. Our GC knew we knew how to do things and that we would not alter his schedule. There was a high level of trust and respect on both sides between us and GC and his subs. You need a LOT of pieces to fall into place for something like this to work and not fry out.

Around here, you can't get a CO until the outside shell is completely finished, you have a central heating system, and you have a 'functional' kitchen and bathroom. All of the electric has to be finished, including fire and CO detectors. The roughed-in shower wouldn't cut it unless you had a functional shower or bath somewhere in the house. I'm not sure what they'd let you get away with, and of course, the situation would be different in virtually every jurisdiction.

I acted as GC on our build, and used a contractor for site work, concrete, and drywall. I was lucky enough to find a great contractor nearby who was fine with me doing whatever portion of the build I wanted to, although don't expect to find someone like that, and, if you do, don't expect him to drop everything and run right over when you're ready for his part of the build.

We paid for our build out-of-pocket, and I can't imagine a bank lending us money, considering our level of involvement.

It is a question of who is legally responsible for possible damage to workers and/or property on site. Either you or the GC would be in control of the site and all that happens there. Unless you do your work after the GC has left the site, it is difficult to share that responsibility.

I've done all the painting, hardwood flooring, interior trim, cabinets, landscaping, and some of the tile work on our project. All of the planned cherry trim may yet take another few years to complete. Our GC has been extremely cooperative and most all of our DIY work has been after his part is done. I didn't want him to have to be in a position to wait for me to do something, and in our state unlicensed individuals are presumed incompetent to touch mechanical systems, so I couldn't do plumbing and electrical as I would have in other places I've lived. That said, I was able to do things like sink and other fixture installation "under the supervision" of our plumber (who didn't want to make an 80 mile round trip for a 20 minute task I was perfectly capable of doing). We didn't take a loan, and it was a large addition and deep energy retrofit of an existing house so both we and our inspector looked the other way on the CO question-- the rules don't seem to be very explicit about when or how you lose one in the course of remodeling. We moved in with undone stuff and no one complained, but we did have "functional" kitchen and baths.

I would say that we saved money only in that we got a much nicer product for the amount that we spent. Birdseye maple flooring with picture framing and a nice inlay, cherry woodwork, much nicer kitchen cabinets, etc vs what we would have had to have done paying full labor rates for similar materials and methods.

Most importantly doing it yourself is a way to get things done right without endless discussions about what is "good enough" and having to be on the lookout all the time for corner cutting or poor workmanship that will get buried in a wall somewhere (or worse left out in the open). It boggles the mind the kind of work some "licensed professionals" will leave in their wake that inspectors will pass as acceptable.

It will almost certainly take you longer, but it is extremely doable and very rewarding.

We're doing this, with a loan, and we are acting as our our GC. Very time consuming, worth it, but exhausting.

Chiming in with time consuming and exhausting. I finished installing 95% of the basement trim yesterday, one window and closet to go. Still need to caulk/patch/touch up paint. Then to finish the upstairs trim, stair railings and final touchups and cleaning.

We haven't saved much money over a basic finish level house, but we have spent the same amount while getting lots of tile, hardwood floors, above average kitchen, finished basement etc.

My only advice is be ready for a lot of work and make sure you can stay motivated. It's a mountain of work.

FYI, I did all paint, cabinet install, all tile, all hardwood (~1500 sq ft), and all trim.

We just finished our build, using a general contractor and a mortgage.

We did our own painting, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, tile, hardwood and landscaping. So we had to work with the GC to make sure we didn't hold them up too much. The GC was great to work with, you will just have to find one that is willing to work around your schedule. Our GC was really busy, so it wasn't like he didn't have other work he could be doing while we worked.

The bank told us we could not be our own GC, but told us that we could do any work we wanted but we would have to be a sub-contractor to the GC. So all the draws went to the GC and he would pay us back for the DIY portions.

The total build took about 6 months and we probably caused 2 months of delay. House is 2,400 sft ranch style plus full unfinished basement, custom but not high end.

I like to DIY too but there aren't too many projects you can do and not hold the GC up. Some are more willing than others to let you do stuff.
When you go and get a construction loan, you give the plans and all the finishes to the bank. You have to put in there if something is left unfinished. Then they appraise it, if you leave tons of stuff unfinished then it might not appraise. The bank is very picky about everything being finished according to what they appraised it with.
Our builder let me run audio wire, probably b/c he knew if I didn't get it done, oh well. We also left the kitchen back splash off, but we had to put a sheet of metal up behind the stove so the bank would see it as "finished".....not much. We worked around it by leaving a bonus room unfinished, we have a bathroom off of a bedroom unfinished (we had the builder put in the plumbing, tub, hvac vent and electrical, which cost us $735 when normally a bathroom is about $5000) and we didn't finish the basement. We also designed the house so that we don't have a garage bc that is easy to do later....so even though we weren't able to much during the build, we were able to leave plenty to do later.