The general contractor you hire for a custom home in Palm Beach or Broward County will be responsible for a multimillion-dollar asset and 12 to 24 months of your life. That relationship deserves more diligence than most homeowners give it. The typical shortcut (three bids, pick the lowest or the most confident presenter) reliably produces the wrong outcome. Here is a more useful framework.
1. Verify the license directly
Florida requires general contractors to be licensed by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR). The two primary credentials for residential custom home work are Certified General Contractor (CGC prefix, statewide) and Certified Building Contractor (CBC prefix, limited to buildings under three stories). You can verify any contractor's license status, issue date, expiration, and disciplinary history at myfloridalicense.com in under two minutes. If a contractor cannot produce their license number on request, that is a signal.
In addition to the license, verify the contractor carries current general liability insurance and workers' compensation coverage. Request the certificate of insurance and confirm it by calling the carrier directly rather than relying on the document alone. Insurance fraud is less common than license fraud, but certificates have been fabricated. Two minutes of verification protects you from an uninsured loss that can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
2. Portfolio fit, not just portfolio quality
The question is not "have you built beautiful homes?" but "have you built homes like mine, under the conditions and regulations I am working in?" A contractor whose portfolio is entirely inland Broward County will face a learning curve on a Palm Beach County coastal project. A contractor whose recent work is entirely production homes will struggle with the precision and custom detailing a ground-up East Delray build requires.
Ask for references from three recent clients in projects comparable to yours. Call them. Ask about budget discipline (was the final number within 10 percent of the original contract), schedule discipline (did the home deliver within four weeks of the original target), and communication (who was their primary contact, how often did they hear from that person, how were problems surfaced and resolved). Reference checks are commonly suggested and rarely performed seriously. They are among the highest-value diligence steps you can do.
3. Subcontractor relationships
The quality of a custom home is produced by the plumber, the electrician, the tile setter, the cabinet installer, and the finish carpenter, not the GC directly. A builder with long-standing subcontractor relationships in the local market gets them scheduled at the right time and gets their best work. A builder who bids every trade out to the lowest price gets whoever is available, whenever, at the quality that produces.
Ask any GC you are considering who their primary subcontractors are for plumbing, electrical, framing, tile, and finish carpentry, and how long those relationships have been in place. The answers will separate the builders who run their business like a network of committed partners from those who run it like a series of transactions.
4. Contract structure
Red flags in a construction contract are usually not obvious to non-contractors. Watch for:
- Allowance lines listed without dollar amounts (kitchen cabinets: "allowance" with no number)
- Vague scope language like "all work necessary to complete the project"
- Payment schedules that front-load compensation (large upfront deposits before observable work is complete)
- Change order provisions that do not require written approval before work proceeds
- Missing substantial completion date
- No stated mechanism for dispute resolution
The right contract is specific about scope, includes detailed allowance schedules with real dollar figures, ties payment to observable construction milestones (foundation complete, framing complete, rough mechanicals inspected, drywall complete, and so on), requires written change orders with cost and timeline impact documented before work proceeds, and includes a target substantial completion date with reasonable adjustment provisions for weather and force majeure.
5. Who is actually managing your job
Many construction firms are built around a founder whose expertise and client relationships drive the business, but whose time is spread across many projects. The key question is not whether the principal is experienced. It is whether they are personally managing your job or delegating it to a less experienced project manager. In a custom home, the decisions that determine quality are made in real time on the job site. If the person making those decisions is a 28-year-old project manager on his third custom build, the outcome will reflect that.
At SouthShore, our principal Chase Lamson personally oversees every project in active construction. We cap the number of simultaneous builds to keep that standard in place. Clients can read more about how we structure the engagement on our [custom home building](/services/custom-home-building) page, or call 561-517-0959 to discuss a specific project.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the lowest bid usually the wrong choice?
Builders sometimes underbid to win projects and recover margin through change orders during construction. This pattern is consistent enough to treat as a near-universal rule. A more useful question than "who is cheapest?" is "whose number is most likely to be accurate?" Ask each builder how many of their recent projects finished within 10 percent of the original contract. That question separates disciplined estimators from optimists.
Should I hire a project manager separate from my builder?
Usually not. On most custom residential projects, an additional project manager duplicates a role the builder is already performing and creates communication friction. If your builder cannot perform effective project management, that is a sign you may have hired the wrong builder, not a reason to layer in another party.
What insurance should I carry as the homeowner during construction?
The builder should carry builder's risk insurance covering the structure during construction, plus general liability and workers' comp. You should carry a vacant-land policy on the lot before construction starts and typically convert to a builder's risk or course-of-construction policy covering your interest as the owner. Your insurance broker can walk you through the specifics based on your policy structure.
Planning a project in South Florida?
SouthShore Builders is based in Delray Beach and builds across Palm Beach County and Broward County.
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