Question concerning construction costs

[NCDeere]

Hey guys. I have recently been looking at my house plans and modifying them to fit my tastes when I got into a discussion with my brother-in-law about cost to build a house. He is in the proces (and has been for a while) of building his house where he is the GC and some of the Sub Contractors. So I don't know if his numbers are correct or not. I remember in the not too distant past that it could cost anywhere from $75-$95 per sqft to build a house. I know that construction materials have gone up quite a bit recently, but my brother-in-law claims it is probably closer to $100-$120 per sqft. I live in North Carolina, just in case any of you might know what a good figure is to use. I am also curious what it is or might be elsewhere. Are there any factors that go into that cost per sqft like size of the house, complex floor plan, etc.? I was just kind of blown away by his estimate. Please tell me he is high. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Thanks for your input.

Bryan

[gsganzer]

I think the $75-$95 is still correct. I just had an addition done that ran about $70. That was for a finished room and included solid wood floors, stone fireplace, electrical and HVAC. No plumbing.

[Michael]

$75-95 sounds about right. Builders are in high demand and short supply around here (Gulfport, MS) right now and prices are still in the $60-however much you want to spend range.
I sold out to move 115 miles inland and got about $105 a square foot for mine, but that price includes the lot.

[Chillimau]

My brother in-law just is finishing up his house, almost 1800sqft of living area plus a two car garage and covered porches front and back. He has around 150,000 - 160,000 in it. He did almost all of the interior work. Almost 90.00/sqft. for the living area.

A few things to keep in mind about sqft costs are the shape of your plan, size of the garage if it has one and covered porches. A square house is cheaper to build per sqft than a long rectangle house. Covered porches and garages aren't typically included in the square feet of living area but still cost money to build and drive up the sqft price of living area.

Gary

[lliefveld]

Well, we're building a home in So. Calif.... which I'll admit probably the highest building costs of any state. But when we got our first quote from a builder for our house a month ago, we were totally blown away when it came in at $300/sq ft!

This is NOT a fancy house, believe me. But then I started taking a look at some of the line items... He included completely custom cabinets (I think Kitchen Kraft is just fine). His allowance for kitchen appliances was $15,000.... I can't imagine how you could spend that much on just the dishwasher, stove/oven, and refrigerator.

We're still waiting on the quote from the second builder, but he's given us a 'heads up' that it will be around $200/sq ft.

So, be grateful you live in a state with lower building costs.

We'll probably do some redesign, but hopefully, we'll be able to keep the things that are important to us.

[lliefveld]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Are there any factors that go into that cost per sqft like size of the house, complex floor plan, etc.? I

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, I almost forgot to mention some of the things that drove up the cost....

We have a hexagonal living room, with the bedrooms as 'wings' off the hexagon. Because of the topography, we thought we were saving money when we added a basement under the hexagon, since the land sloped quite a bit. In addition, it's a view property, so we had a covered 10'deck on 4 sides. We specifically did not want anything in the center of the hexagon - we wanted it open. So, that meant there was a huge need for support from the corners of the hexagon. The engineering requirements came in needing 12' diameter steel posts surrounded by cement in all 6 corners of the hexagon, from roof all the way down 8' into the ground. And 'ground' is pure granite. We would have to have a well-digger drill the holes.

In addition, we had to have a retaining wall for the basement, which required a lot of cement and cement block. Add to that the cement patio around one side of the house, and the cement floor for the extra large garage, and we had lots of cement.

We're now planning on no basement, which eliminates the retaining wall, just put the house up on stilts. Eliminate all the patio work (we can do that ourselves later, at a much reduced cost).

Oh, also our architect had talked us into a spiral staircase in the middle of the hexagon living room, going down to the basement. Sounded really neat. But then I realized... if it's going down to the basement, no one's going to see it - it's not going to be this magnificent statement... so, by eliminating the spiral staircase, we saved a lot as well.

[sneaky_pete]

Another data point - we were in New Mexico (East Mountain area in Santa Fe County) last week interviewing builders, and were quoted $165-185+ for a custom built, energy-efficient house there.

[EddieWalker]

I've built a few homes, but mostly I do remodels, additions and repairs.

I built the house I live in now for $30 a ft. That's almost all materials. I only subed out the slab and HVAC.

The year before I built one for $55 a foot usuing subs for most of the work.

Entry level and your standard family home in my area of East TX sell for $65 to $75 a foot. The higher end homes go for $100 a foot on up, but those are pretty nice with crown moulding, granite counters and all the extras.

I read this week in a trade magazine that materials for single family homes run around 35 percent of the overall cost. Labor, land, permints, plans and fee's make up the rest.

Some of the really large home builders who do hundreds and thousands of homes a year can get their materials for 27 to 28 percent of the total cost of the home.

So a $300,000 home has around $100,000 in materials.

Of course, numbers vary from area to area, but the percentages come from national averages, so that's pretty solid info I'd think.

Eddie

[EddieWalker]

Just for comparison, a few years ago when I lived in Califonia, new homes were being built for $350 a foot on up and compared to here, they aren't half the home, but cost over three times as much to build.

Eddie

[Shegan]

I was talking with a contracter a few weeks ago and he said the costs are begining to go up in this area. Try to get a sample of where the price is coming from (labor, material...) and do your own estimating. Although it is not a number you would want to bet the farm on, it can give you a general idea of costs.