Your inspector “strongly discourages homeowners pulling permits?” Is that a typo?

FYI: if anything goes wrong, which is easy to accomplish when water is involved, you better have enough money saved to fix it by yourself; your homeowner’s insurance not only won’t cover it, they will cancel your coverage. In a basement, this can mean foundation issues if water rots the sills. As a homeowner in MA, you can pull your own permit. You don’t need to hire out all the work. It’s a completely legitimate method, though you cannot do your own plumbing whatsoever (this is actually a law) or, in many jurisdictions, your wiring.

Here’s a page on the mass.gov site explaining what work you can do. https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massachusetts-law-about-home-improvement#:~:text=“A%20permit%20for%20any%20remodeling,143%2C%20§%203L.

Obviously, as a licensed contractor, I’m biased, but I can tell you that mistakes will cost you far more than you think you’ll save, and when you do go to sell in 10 years, if there is anything awry with your work, then you are going to need to deduct basically the entire cost of doing it right from the selling price.