What is the difference between $200 and $300 sqft?

[txdon]

ustm you are right.

There are so many up grades in building I can see them easily adding $100 a foot to a house.
Metal roof over solid decking, and upgrade Ice and water underlay, metal ducts for A/c system, foam in walls, large tile floor set at an angle. special countertops and cabinets, upgrade fixtures and appliances, higher ceilings, tray ceilings, rock exterior, arches, round corners on sheetrock walls tiled porches, upgrade doors, wider doors for wheelchair, walk in shower, beamed ceilings, built-in cabinets, upgrade windows, fireplace/woodburning stove, outdoor kitchen area, etc etc . . . .

 

[PILOON]

The difference is using designer tiles vs big box offerings.
Exotic hard woods for flooring.
Top of the line windows and doors.*
Custom cabinets vs off the shelf as offered by big box stores.
Built in kitchen appliances.
Crazy multi angled roof lines vs 2 or 4 surfaces.
Lots of dormer windows fake or not.

*probably the one most costly budget items, especially when U have dome tops.
(I once had a client that was sold on an $1200. door that I subsequently had a local artisan custom make for about $450.)
Patio doors with internal venetian blinds @ $1500.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I had my house built for around $60 sq. foot if figured under-roof and $81 sq. ft if only figured for heated space. I have large porches and 30x30 garage unheated which accounts for the difference in price.
It is not fancy but practical. We have marble flooring everywhere but bedrooms and bathroom. Bedrooms have hardwood, bath has ceramic tile (marble we felt was too slippery when wet). All appliances are pro grade, windows and doors are double pane with e-rating, all interior walls are insulated to help with sound reduction.

I rough designed the floor plan then had a draftsperson draw everything to scale ($100 fee). After looking at it and some more looking at the layout, we had to reverse the whole plan to put the garage on the opposite end. We redlined all the changes and another $100 got us a fully detailed floor and roof plan. We then just sat down with the contractor to discuss details and put a contract in writing with allowances for windows and doors, appliances, HVAC, cabinets,interior trim, etc.
I know most folks wouldn't trust a builder to do this, but the guy had just finished sister-in-laws house next door and did a very good job so we were happy to do it that way. I had asked him if we needed to spec anything out and the only thing we speced was the SEER rating for the HVAC unit. Everything else was standard practice quality. We worked within the budget on most things but did about double the budget on custom cabinets and countertops but we saved a bundle on the flooring cost that offset the cabinets.
I would not recommend doing as I did unless you have extreme confidence in your contractor. Ours was a local person with good references and the payment schedule was in 3 parts based on satisfactory completion of the portions specified.

Of course land cost was not included in the house nor was the $6500 septic & $3000 lawn sprinkler system which we had put in by other contractors.

 

[EddieWalker]

I have no idea what labor is in your part of the country, but as a contractor that has build a few homes, I can say that for me, it's about $60 to $70 a sq foot to build a decent all brick house. For fancy, it's goes up to $100 a sq ft. Cost is all in the finishes used, how much trim, types of flooring and cabinets. According to one of the trade magazines that I get, one third of the cost to build a house is materials, the rest is labor. The goal of all the big home builders is to get labor costs down. My goal when building spec homes was to make $10 a square foot off a house when it's sold and everyone is paid. Sometimes I made $12 a foot.

While I understand that Architects serve a purpose, in every case that I've dealt with them, they are a waste of money in building a home unless you have a really unique design in mind, or the location requires it. Just about every floor plan imaginable has already been drawn, and it's probably on a website somewhere already. I like House Plans, Home Plans, Floor Plans and Home Building Designs from the eplans.com House Plans Store | Garage Plans and Blueprints but will look at others too for ideas.

Step one when building is to decide what you have to have in a house. You seem to be doing good at this with your other posts.

Step two is to find the builder. Be careful of hiring the "best" because that's a red flag for me. Find the guy who has a great reputation, who is constantly busy, and runs a clean build site. I think you already said somewhere that you have family who builds houses, so that might be a done deal.

Step three, have your builder draw up your plans. If you need a permit, he will know who to use to get that done for the best price. The advantage to having your builder draw up your plans is he knows how to engineer it. What is available to make the span, and what it will cost to do that. Your Architect may or may not understand framing. You won't find out until the build starts and things start getting expensive and impossible. With every house, you start out with a box and then make it more complicated. How complicated you make it, is where a lot of the time comes in, and where the money goes. Mobile homes are all rectangular and extremely well designed and laid out for maximum use. They are crap, but the floor plans are genius for the space available.

Your builder will know in seconds after looking at a blue print if you are wasting a ton of money on some feature that really has no value to the house. An Architect wont, and is usualyl responsible for adding that wasted feature.

Back in CA, where I'm from and we have a lot of earthquakes and all the easy to build on land is long gone, it can cost $300 to $400 a foot to build a tract home. $500 a foot isn't uncommon for custom.

 

[Dadnatron]

No builders in the family.

When going directly to a builder for design and build, are there anythings to watch out for? Pitfalls? I have no inroads into builders in the area, so I will be at their 'mercy' so to speak. I can recognize a lot of things, but one of my largest weaknesses is that I am pretty trusting. I don't lie and think the same of most others. It has bitten me more times than I want to remember, but I still find myself forgetting reality sometimes.

So, if we went that direction, how would you approach the builder and what would you watch out for?

 

[Peter 315]

I would get everything in writing no matter what all changes what type of lights, flooring , carpet , etc. My next neighbor had his house built by his friend a contractor what a sh*t show from the start , The house is in the wrong spot by a few feet ,plus a bunch of other stuff, NOT friends anymore . Hope you have good luck

 

[teg]

Don't hire a friend - it's a business deal. My builder and my Architect are friends of mine - it did not take long for my builder to fire my Architect... and everyone was a lot happier! I would agree with skipping the Architect and get a good builder.

Figure out what you want in a house, location of rooms and figure out what you like and don't like. I did not find anything that we wanted for our mountain house so I drew it up and the builder pulled out a plan (that wasn't online) that was so close to my plan that they just moved a few things around and it matched my plan.

 

[FM504]

I just built a 4000sq ft “barndominium” with 1000sq ft carport and 400 sq ft covered porch...4800 sqft Slab, 2x6 on 16 centers frame, 3br/3bth 2000 living 2000 shop. Stained concrete, custom cabinets, granite throughout, wood burning stove, 8ft doors, 10ft ceiling, Lennox hvac, spray foam insulation throughout even in interior walls, closed cell foam in the shop, 2-12ft roll up shop doors. It’s rural, we own the land, sat down with builder and drew out what we wanted and he built it off a sketch on a legal pad. 270k

 

[widefat]

Went through this a couple of years ago. In addition to all of the comments already made, our architect explained it thus -
every angle, every piece of moulding, every jeejaw adds to the price per sq. foot. Every dimension that is not in 2 ft increments adds to the cost per sq. ft
Building out is more expensive than building up.

In the end we did not follow through because the land deal fell through.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Of course, if you don't know a contractor, everything has to be specified from type of wall switches to flooring, wall board, and framing, (2x4 or 2x6 etc) all the way to the roofing material. Even the type and brand of insulation to use. In other words, start with the foundation (4000 PSI concrete) rebar, plumbing under slab or in ceiling (mine is under slab with closed cell foam insulation on hot and cold water with a recirculation pump for the hot water, copper lines for all plumbing (your choice) and finish with the roofing. You will have to know a bit about construction to do this correctly which is why many folks just go to and architect and pay $$$$$$ to have them do it for you. There really isn't anything that a normally intelligent layman and a good contractor cant sit down and lay out for the house materials and trim. Then the contractor can take that info, incorporate that into a contract with pricing.

We bought all the appliances, windows, doors, lighting and ceiling fans (allowance price deducted from the contract). So if you stay involved with the construction and the contractor, lots of things can be done to save some money and get better quality.