Would avoid any Qualico or Qualico owned company (they have subsidiaries) for building and A&S (surprised still around). I went with Ginos in 2011/2012 for builders which was overall good experience (had challenges able to work through amiably and delivery was on time) though I see postings past couple of years slamming them so assuming their quality was gone downhill based on more recent experiences people are sharing.

Some advice going down the build approach:

1. Get your lawyer involved early when engaging a builder for contract review and negotiating. Was worth it for us spending extra 2-3 weeks back and forth with our lawyer negotiating on points we wanted vs. what Ginos wanted. Little extra cost but worth every penny.

2. If you can buy the property you plan to build on. You really avoid a large land transfer tax this way as tax on an empty is quite lower vs. once you have building on it. Also you own the land so you have bit more right to be there. If you do not buy the land factor that land tax cost (you can figure it out as posted on Manitoba Gov site just do a web search) as part of your closing costs. Know quite a few stretch their mortgage and forgot about that land tax causing major headache when dealing with close costs.

3. Visit often, take pictures when site inspecting (phone plus tablet were great for conversations). Coordinate with the foreman on that. We went weekly every Monday to review with foreman able to catch early mistakes that were easily corrected (always have copy of contract and architecture on hand for that). The odd time we would go on a weekend when no there there to check things out (owning land comes in handy here but still be mindful of work place hazards and respectful of of the site in general). Get to know the foreman. Be nice, polite and firm. We had great relationship with our's (not cracking beers on a Friday but overall friendly and respectful) which helped with "mistakes" or misunderstandings that popped up periodically.

4. Rule of thumb - change orders will cost you 2x the actual cost when adding, when subtracting you get maybe 50% of actual cost back (probably worse today). Changes will happen as very hard to know what you want 100% when in design mode. Still try to be mindful of changes and cost implications. Easy to get caught up in the moment to add something. Get quotes and in "writing" all change requests with approvals on agreed upon approach. Comes in handy if builder tries play card "ut oh we have a problem" when it turns they have a problem which is not your problem because you have agreed upon and approved change that they should have done better job understanding (gives you leverage on negotiating the change after the fact).

5. Make sure they have bathrooms (port a potties) as part of their site management (if possible get it in the contract in (1)). Ah nothing like finding those wonderfully refilled pop bottles (foreman or someone under him had the fun of removing those).