New Home Construction Costs

[mjncad]

Scoutcub:

Eddie is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to residential construction.

I also second Herd's comments about 'change orders' driving costs up significantly depending on the request.

Unfortunately things are so different price wise across the country that it makes it tough for people to give more definitive numbers for you on forums like this. California is EXPENSIVE, while the Midwesterners have it made for getting a house built at reasonable costs. Colorado is a mini California in that prices for construction are higher than they probably should be.

Do you have a decent library near you? If so, you might check the R.S. Means estimating books for your area (e.g. state). That may be of help.

Another rough and I do mean rough way to guesstimate is to check property tax records for your area, and for homes built within the last five years; then check for sales price and finished square footage. Take the price and divide by finished square footage to arrive at price per square foot. I did this for the three homes on the block where we have property and found prices ranging from ~$114/sq ft to ~$175/sq ft. I've been in both of the houses and they are by the same builder and are the same floor plan. The low cost one looks like crap, while the high cost one is quite nice.

 

[tlbuser]

Pretty good and accurate info. so far. $100/finished sq.ft would be midgrade here. I noticed you mentioned architect in your future. If going that route, they should have a portfolio which includes recommended GC's. As others have said, depending on.......15% is a decent ballpark and lots of headaches for the homeowner can disappear. The architect will have hands on and the GC becomes your job foreman and is your "go to" person. Depending on the design, the architect and GC should understand all of the complexities before they start.
Without a stamped building plan, it's almost impossible to quote a foundation. Poured walls, ICF, slab on grade, footers and block and/or a combination of all can be done. How about a basement under the 4 car garage? The amount of steel,decking, reinforcing and grading for a job like that is way different than a basement under a 20x20 wing.
Current pricing is $110/yard for concrete and $300/hr for a pumper plus steel and labor.
An average building lot - well, septic and electric service should come in between 15 and 20K. Non standard like a septic mound can double that. Permits and fees are very local things and let's not forget school allocation fees and road frontage fees and.......

 

[Dargo]

Current pricing is $110/yard for concrete and $300/hr for a pumper plus steel and labor.
An average building lot - well, septic and electric service should come in between 15 and 20K. Non standard like a septic mound can double that. Permits and fees are very local things and let's not forget school allocation fees and road frontage fees and.......

Yes, I'd agree that there is probably a 200% difference just depending on the build quality. Not saying the lower end is the equal of a wobbly box built on sight, but just the grade of materials and your design. Because of my driveway, parking areas, 1660 sq. ft. wrap around brick and concrete porch (covered of course with 18 ceiling fans) and barns, I've used over 2000 sq. yds. of concrete already. Since we have guests over and frequently host parties, I opted for mostly quartz counter tops with some granite. That runs up the costs. Also, I have no carpeting; only stone, ceramic tile and hardwood flooring. That kills the flooring bill. Add in a large inground pool with even more concrete and custom brick work and a 1500 sq. ft. poolhouse made to match the main house and costs went up even more.

Then, as some have noted, kitchens and bathrooms are expensive. I have 7 baths in all with two kitchens. It's really easy to make sq. ft. estimates unrealistic if you build to suit yourself and it's your final home for life. My first home was only about 38% the cost per sq. ft. as this one, but I knew I wouldn't stay there but maybe 5 years. Using higher quality (read; more expensive) materials wouldn't pay off in resale, at least in my area. Then, couple all of that along with my stubborn 'pay as you go - no mortgage plan, it forced the construction to last nearly 15 years. Now that I'm finally nearing final completion, I'm finding that I need to go back and re-do some things and finish some things that slipped my mind, such as crown molding. That got put off when I opted for all custom solid wood doors. They look really nice, but sometimes are bad if the kids slam a 90 pound door. I keep telling them that they need to be careful because if someone's fingers are in the door, those heavy solid wood doors will take a finger right off.

Good luck!

 

[polo1665]

Scoutcub, Our home was built not far from you (Malvern) in 2003. It is 2x6 construction, 9' ceilings, hardwood and tile floors through out, with seamless steel siding, five french doors, a full 12 course block basement, and a wrap around Ipe deck. Back in 2003 it was built for about $125/sqft (the best I can figure). It is a very well built home. If you are going to be the GC you could knock some off that price.
As far as your specific question about the breakdown for foundation, framing, and so on, I really can't help you there.

 

[EddieWalker]

I'm doing something similar to Dargo. My house is just 1,000 sq ft, and I built it myself for $35 a ft. I have a 24x30 shop and all sorts of storage areas for work and the land. If I had just built the living area, it would have been quite a bit less. It's possible to build a house yourself for very little, but you have to remember that it will take allot longer, and you will have to take a step back every now and then to keep moving forward.

We tried staining the concrete to save money on flooring in part of the house. We liked it at first, and from what others said, it was a hit. After a few years, we've come to hate it and have tiled over most of it. My family room is still concrete and we want to put wood down, but it's low on our list of things to do.

We have three bedrooms and two full bathrooms. With two kids and a wife in a small house, we'ver realized that we need another bathroom, so I'm going to add on another 200 sq ft for a really nice bathroom. This will be expesive sq footage and ad qiite a bit to my build cost. Of course, it will also add allot of value to my house without changing the footprint or increasing my property tax.

Currently I'm taxed for a house valued at $60,000 and I had to challenge the tax assesor to get it down to that, which I won.

I have two more house builds in my for what I live. My next one will be a nicer family home next to this one. I'm in no rush to build it, or spend the money, but the plans are in place and it will happen one of these years.

The last house I build will be after I sell this place and buy my dream ranch. That one will probably take me ten years to build.

Doing it yourself is a great way to save a bunch of money, but it takes so much longer to finish it. You get so much done, move in, make ajustments, put things off and live with things the way they are until you get the time and money to finish them off. Then while living there, you want to make changes, and there goes the budget. LOL

For a single family, residential home, I'm very hesitant on hiring an archetect. If you go to www.eplans. com and enter the size of the house you want, you'll be overwhelmed with floorplans. You can narrow it down by style, footprint and features, but even then, there will be more then you could think of.

Pretty much every possible way to draw a floorplan has already been thought up. There really isn't anything new out there, just new ways to do it. Rooms need to be so big, and you have to have so many rooms. Most homes are very functional up to 2,000 sq ft. After that, you start to get space that you never use, and is more for show then function. Two places to eat when 90% of the time you eat in front of the TV is a waste of space in my opinion. A formal dining room is very nice, but one of those expeses that you can eliminate real easily. Two and three living rooms are also an expense that rarely gets used. I've been in allot of homes that have rooms just to display the fancy furniture, but is never used.

With a floorplan that you like, you can then figure out how to finish it off. Ignore what the outside of the house looks like in the drawing. That can be changed to anything. Log cabin floorplans are always very open, moble home floor plans are always the best laid out for cost savings.

I think that just about every contractor out there can build a house from a drawing on a napkin. It happens all the time, and it's really quite simple to build a house from a very basic scetch. Find the plan that you like, modify it to fit your needs and use that in your bid process.

Of course, another advantage of hiring a GC is that he'll be able to look at your plan and tell you if it's the most expensive way to build, due to waste, span or man hours. He will also be able to offer suggestions that will save you money, but still end up with something similar.

Eddie

 

[westcliffe01]

The township I live in, Napoleon MI, which has a median household income of 43k/yr, revised their zoning rules in 2005 to require mandatory architect plans to be submitted as part of the permitting process. Not only that, but if erecting any "structure", driveway or fence, a survey is also required. These 2 items alone can add several thousand $ to the cost of any project and may be more expensive than the project itself. Considering that the median home price in 2008 was only $108k, I think that the concept of affordability in the Midwest is a little overstated.

I am wanting to add a workshop to my property, so I started reading the zoning rules. It turns out that if I built a detached structure (best from a construction simplicity and insurance standpoint) I am limited to a little over 700sq ft and the highest part of the roof may not exceed 15 ft in height. That does not sound good when I intend to be able to drive my loader backhoe inside to work on it out of the weather - I am guessing that I need a door at least 10ft high. If I build the shop attached to the house, there is no limitation to roof height and the floor area goes up to a total of 1/3 coverage of the lot. The problem is that our access road runs down the west side and (with a curve) the south side of the property. And the township plan (dated in the 50's) shows another (non-existent) road to the east of the property. The lot is only 1/4 acre to begin with and now I have 25ft setbacks on 3 sides and 20ft on the side I could attach the shop to. The original setbacks were much smaller (more like 8 ft) and the limitations to detached buildings didn't exist either, so my neighbors have huge double story garages with either a shop below or storage above.

The best part about the process is that the survey revealed that the developer put the road in the wrong place and the road actually sits on 30 ft of my property. Furthermore, it turns out that my neighbor on the south side has his driveway almost entirely running through my property. Basically there is no way the county will move the road and if I was to push on the driveway issue with the neighbor, the only way things could be made legal would be for me to sell him a piece of my lot, thus hemming me in even more.

What I am trying to do right now is to put the shop on the neighbors side, attached to the house, and change the neighbors driveway such that it becomes a common driveway servicing the neighbor and my shop. I should be able to attain support from the neighbor for this plan, since all the alternatives (at least in the short term) would cause him a lot of hardship, since he hardly even has sufficient space to back out the garage and turn without driving on my land. The complicated bit is that I will need a variance from the township approving a reduced setback for the shop on the neighbors side, along with the common driveway. Since the neighbor is the only household affected in any way, I am hoping that with his support the township will use common sense and give me the variance. If they refuse it will be ugly.

This situation with its different facets simply illustrates how regimented life has become in a rural suburb in a relatively low population area in the midwest. One expects to find this kind of regimentation in gated communities in Florida, but not here.

 

[Pops15]

Great info Eddie.
Local building codes can be a factor in costs also. The county where I live and the county to the north both require an architect's stamp on the print before they'll issue a permit. That adds to the cost. We built some houses in a town that required flitch beams (1/2" steel plate sandwiched between 2X12's) for headers. That adds to the cost.

It's common for a GC to charge 15%. It least it used to be that way before the market tanked. I know in my area that GC's will gladly work for less right now. To give an example of how bad things are here in 2008 there were 350-some new houses built in a neighboring town. In 2009 there was one! Its a buyers market right now.
How much can a DIY-GC shave off the 15%? They won't save a cent on concrete. In fact they may pay more. They can probably buy dimension lumber for about the same price. It's unlikely they will ever buy windows, cabinets, trim, and fixtures for what a contractor can. The DIY-GC will burn up much of the 15% savings just in added material costs. Add in the inevitable construction delays that inexperience will cause and the price could well exceed what a GC would charge.

Eddie mentioned hard and soft prices. The customer can save themselves allot of money by picking everything out before the bidding process, and not making changes during construction. This is where a good GC can really earn his money. Sit down and discuss your needs with a GC. Ask lots of questions. He'll have some good suggestions. The more decisions that are made before the bidding process the smoother things will go during construction. Plus you'll eliminate allot of unexpected costs. A good GC will be willing to lock in a firm price. The only exceptions being change orders and underground obstructions (rock). The next best thing would be to use allowances for fixtures and finishes. Just be sure the GC and subs are using realistic prices for their allowances.

I haven't seen anyone talk about the pay as you go plan. Mortgage rates are very low right now. Lock in your mortgage rate now!

More about GC's. Talk with several. Check their references, ask lots of questions. Pick the one or two you think will work best with you, THEN get prices. The bottom line isn't the amount you spend, it's the value you get for your investment. Sometimes an extra 2 or 3% ...or even 15% is money well spent!

 

[Coyote machine]

Here is what we are completing as I write this. We started with a 2000+ sq foot house build by a builder in about 1974. We added a new kitchen and mudroom on for an additional 1200 sq'. We joined the existing first floor bath with shower toilet, sink with an extension bath, moving the toilet into the new area, adding a jet tub and radiant heat throughout the downstairs. We replaced the old hydronic furnace/boiler with a Buderus gas unit, took out the 2 stack chimney and its 'pre-fab' exterior framing and replaced the wood burning insert /fireplace's vent stack with a rear vent gas insert. Now all heating is supplied by a 1000 gallon in ground propane tank and a 20Kw B&S generator with transfer switch and load shed center. The dining room also has a gas fireplace and the Viking range is fed by propane too. We went with locally built custom birch cabinets and granite counter tops, and island with granite, a separate roll around bake center for my daughter, with a locally quarried marble top and custom chandeliers for the dining room table and over the island area.
The builder and I did the design off the usual back of a napkin and he quoted me around 135/sq' for structure. We used architectural shingles, and standing seam metal roofing, with a custom designed atrium area with sno-melt roof tubing. We excavated for a 4' concrete foundation crawl space under the addition with a rat slab. We used an engineered truss system for the addition roof/ceilings which are 12' feet at peak in dining room/kitchen area and closed cell spray foam throughout all new construction. Lots of Marvin Integrity line windows, which have fiberglass frames for best energy efficiency, etc and three Velux skylites with electric op. blinds added to inside the fixed pane interior frames.

My point is I act somewhat like my own GC but have one on site running his crew for the actual build. The actual GC and I make all decisions as we go, as to material choice, where to buy and how much. I use my own electrician and the foundation was sub-contracted for which the GC gets his percentage. He also gets a percentage on the plumber, tile guy, etc. There was no % by GC on cabinets, electric, tile, granite, electric fixtures, and many other items which I specked and paid for in advance, out of pocket. There is no change order situation since we coordinate things as we see the need and there is very little to change. I am on site pretty much every day since middle of March'09 and we are still doing punch list on house/addition. We also took on a 40'd x 30'w barn with a 12'w x 40'd boat bay with overhang roof off the barn's side. The barn is a prefab factory built unit by a custom home outfit nearby our area. For that extra piece of work and its value to my builder/GC he charges me NO percent on the building structure, but does charge for the subs, etc. He did this to allow himself to become one of their listed premier builders and to keep my project moving without any stop of work from beginning to end.
We just renegotiated his percentage on the subs and materials and he was willing to cut his % in half. This is great for me and allows me to keep things going and to hopefully come to completion of the entire project with about a year time frame.

So my points are you can save a lot of money by working out a special 'contract' with the GC you choose and we used no architects, except for the barn because it came with one in the package price for the structure. (Just add water- instant architect )
By doing things this way I am actively involved in every step but my only tools are the phone, my eyes and the net and pc use for constant communication with all involved. It saves a ton on headaches and backaches and still manages to keep the overall costs down as low as is possible working with a professional GC on site.
BTW, I wanted to mention Hardiboard as a siding consideration for your structure. It is cementaceous fiberboard and looks like clapboard, and comes in a variety of colors. We actually tore off the existing houses cedar shakes (dryrotted), and used Hardiboard for the entire structure and replaced the old 1974 versions Andersens with new Marvins and 1' Blueboard on the entire structure below the siding. Hardiboard comes with a 30 yr. warranty and with a second coat of paint within 180m days allows for another 15 year extension to the warranty. It is also fire rated so it adds another layer of protection to your house. Virtually maintenance free.
Oh yeah, one last item. Our prior septic leach field had already failed and needed replacing so we had to build a mound system and septic pump station at large expense as well as tie in to the system with a separate septic tank for the barn's second floor apartment.
All in all I'm very happy with the results of the entire project but it has been a long and very expensive undertaking for what will hopefully be our final home.

Hope this helps.

 

[Wildbill34]

I was the GC on my house project and I will tell you after it was completed, I vegged for a few months. The missus couldn't get a team of horses to get me out of my easy chair. With that said, I have to say I really enjoyed doing the project. One of the key elements is not to always take the less expensive way. I built a 2400 sf ranch with a full poured wall, walkout basement. You see, I learned a lot helping other friends build their house. I was mostly the grunt labor for the different projects that were going on. That way I built up time from all of them and they came over to help me on different parts of the project. I watched and paid attention to a lot of what was going on. I also seen some things I would not except and saw some other thing I thought were pretty cool.

Some things I learned, I in no way had enough budgeted for landscaping... Well I did for my taste, but the little boss wanted something totally different than what I was thinking. I am here to tell you boulders are expensive, especially 4 leads of boulders. Second, all the plants she put in would have scared the monkeys away in the jungle....I couldn't tell you the name of a tenth of them, but she could.

Kitchen, bathes and lighting can get out of sight. Who would've of thought pine cabinets wasn't ok for the boss. We ended up all hickory with granite everywhere including the walk-in showers.

For my own peace of mind I overbuilt everything, upgraded the trusses, floors, shingles. Didn't want to do them again. Glad I did, because I have absolutely no deflection on my floors. We did the tile, installed the cabinets, lights, doors, siding and painting too.

I subbed out the flat work, poured walls, framing, plumbing, mechanicals, septic, well and drywall. The rest we pretty much did. I am here to tell you installing 1400 sf of tile will make a old man out of you in a hurry.

I prepped the land and cut in the diveway (400 ft).....any reason to get on the big toys, I used it.

But there was significant satisfaction after it was all complete and I know everything was done the was it was supposed to be done. Key element was also making sure you used subs that have a good reputation and you have seen their work. While it gets time consuming to go check, make sure you do.

We also had building inspections along the way and the inspectors made sure they checked it all real close because I was the home owner building his own house. I was frustrated at first then thought later of it and appreciated them looking as close as they did. The real question, would I do it again.....probably so, but I sure won't lay the dang tile again.

All in all it came out great and I can carry the bragging rights that I built it myself...or at least some of it. I would estimate I saved 50 -60k on GC charges and another 30k or so soing some of the work we did.

 

[Alan L.]

In 2007 mine worked out to about $105 and that is with zero general contractor fee, paying the subs myself. We got premium Marvin wood windows, mostly real hardwood floors, foam insulation, lots of cedar, cement floored balcony on the second floor, granite countertops, custom cabinets, etc. I think everything is high quality, but not fancy or pretentious at all. Just country. If I had it to do over I'd like more foam insulation, metal roof, and rock instead of brick. But the cost would have been considerably more.

We have about 2200 heated but room for 2 more bedrooms as bonus in the attic space. Only 2 bedrooms and a sleeping loft area.

I have never regretted any of the money we spent on high quality such as the windows. Only the money we didn't spend. For example I wish our fireplace was deeper, we use it quite a bit. Also wish I had put in 2 tankless water heaters instead of one. Takes a while to get hot water from one end of the house to the other. These were cost cutting measures that I would change if I did it again.