Palm Beach County Rental Renovation Guide · Project Manager vs. General Contractor · 2026

Project Manager vs. General Contractor: Palm Beach County Renovations

By Jean Taveras, CEO & Broker-Owner, Atlis Property Management  ·  Updated July 2026

Every owner facing a rental renovation eventually asks the same question: who actually runs this project? The three answers — hire a general contractor, hire an independent project manager, or use your property manager's coordination service — sound similar but work very differently, cost differently, and carry different risk. Getting this decision wrong is the single most common way owners overpay or lose control of a renovation before it starts.

Atlis coordinates make-readies and renovations across Jupiter, Palm Beach Gardens, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Wellington, Riviera Beach, and the full South Florida service area. This guide breaks down exactly what each option means for your budget and your risk.

General Contractor: Builds and Supervises, Charges a Markup

A general contractor is a licensed professional who performs construction work directly and supervises subcontractors on site. They price a job by marking up the cost of materials and subcontractor labor to cover overhead, risk, and profit. National industry data puts that markup at roughly 10% to 20% of total project cost. Based on Atlis's experience coordinating vendors across every Palm Beach County submarket, the real range locally often runs meaningfully higher — commonly 30% to 50% — particularly in higher-income communities. This is Atlis's own market observation, not a verified third-party statistic, but it is a consistent pattern across the projects we coordinate.

The GC model makes sense when a project requires genuine construction supervision — structural changes, multiple interdependent trades working in sequence, or work requiring a general contractor's license by law. The tradeoff is that the GC's fee is baked into the material and labor pricing itself, which makes it harder for an owner to see exactly what they are paying for coordination versus what they are paying for the actual work.

Independent Project Manager: Oversees, Charges a Separate Fee

An independent project manager represents the owner rather than the trades, typically working for a flat fee or percentage rather than marking up materials. National data puts this fee at roughly 5% to 10% of project cost. Because the PM has no financial stake in which vendor is selected or what materials are used, their incentive is aligned with the owner's budget rather than a vendor's margin — a genuine advantage over the GC model. Based on Atlis's experience in Palm Beach County, however, independent PM fees commonly run 15% to 30%, again with the highest fees showing up disproportionately in higher-income submarkets rather than tracking the actual complexity of the work.

An independent project manager typically does not need a state contractor's license, since the role is administrative and advisory rather than hands-on construction. That is exactly the model Atlis's project coordination service is built on — but without the cost of hiring an entirely separate outside firm that doesn't know the property.

Project Coordination: The Third Option Most Owners Don't Know Exists

There is a third model that isn't a general contractor and isn't a separately-hired independent project manager: project coordination through the property management company that already manages your rental. Atlis coordinates make-readies and renovations for owner-clients already under management — sourcing itemized vendor bids, scheduling access, and managing the process on the owner's behalf, for a transparent 10% fee on total project cost. The owner contracts directly with each independently licensed vendor; Atlis coordinates the process and disburses funds as the owner's agent, never as the contracting party.

The practical advantage over hiring an outside PM firm is that the coordination team already knows the property, the tenant situation, and the owner's preferences — there is no onboarding period, no separate point of contact to manage, and no risk of the property manager and an outside PM working from different information. The fee is also lower than the ranges Atlis has observed for both GCs and independent PMs in this market.

National figures per industry sources (Angi, Homes & Gardens). Florida-specific ranges reflect Atlis's own market experience coordinating vendors across Palm Beach County, not an independently verified statistic.

“Owners come to us after getting a lump-sum number from a contractor with no breakdown, and they have no way to tell whether they're paying for the work or paying for the zip code. The whole point of coordination is that the owner sees the itemized bid, contracts directly with the vendor, and knows exactly what our fee covers — nothing is buried inside someone else's markup.”

— Jean Taveras, CEO & Broker-Owner, Atlis Property Management · FL Broker CQ1071712

How to Verify Anyone Before You Sign, Regardless of Model

Whichever model you choose, the verification steps are the same, and skipping them is where owners get hurt. Florida’s contractor license lookup at myfloridalicense.com is free and takes under a minute — use it before signing anything, not after a problem arises. Confirm the license is active, matches the trade being performed, and has no open disciplinary actions. Then ask for a current certificate of insurance naming you as an additional insured, and confirm workers’ compensation coverage if the crew has employees.

Finally, get the fee structure in writing before work begins — not verbally, not implied, in writing. Whether it’s a GC’s markup percentage, a PM’s flat fee, or a coordinator’s percentage of total cost, you should be able to see the exact number and how it was calculated on the same document as the itemized scope. If that document doesn’t exist yet, it should before any deposit changes hands.

How to Decide Which Model Fits Your Project

Frequently Asked Questions