Where to begin

[Daddymem]

Where do you begin to figure out how much a house is going to cost to build?  As an engineer, I would go straight to the Means books and bang out a cost estimate for site work in a jiffy.  But where do you go for building your own house?  I'm a little concerned.  I have gone with the $50/sf rough estimate on the house (John's 2 story farmhouse), add site work including basement, electrical, plumbing, heating and well to come in at over $100,000 built ourselves.  Is that in the right ballpark?    I hope not.  We are considering just gettting it to the point of an occupancy permit (1 bathroom, kitchen floor down, drywall up and taped only, etc.) and finish it off as money and time permits.  Our equity when we sell our house won't cover this estimate and a mortgage would mean having to complete it entirely before moving in.  Combined with everyone telling us we are crazy to try to build this house on our own, we're pretty discouraged right now.

[Amanda_931]

Suddenly makes one of those teensy houses brought to your site sound like bargains.

But isn't the $50/square foot more than just drying in?

[Daddymem]

Yeah, that's the point.  $50/sf finished...how can you break it down to determine occupancy permit only?

[Shelley]

Have you sold you current house already?

Where are you planning to live til it's functional?

[Daddymem]

We plan on selling in the spring.  We have the ok to live in a trailer on site while we build.  My parents live next door so we get some amenities there.

[JRR]

Daddymem

I wouldn't suggest you exactly follow the building schedule I'm using ... it might cause a bit of stress for some folks.

My wife and I are retired oldies ... and building a weekender cottage for my daughter.   Thus far, we've done all the work.  My daughter doesn't yet "need" the building ... so we build at the slow pace allowed by our busy lives of travelling and babysitting. (See "gambrel roof" in John's photo gallery).

We enjoy making the trip to the work site, cutting the grass, talking to the neighbors and, yes ... getting a few hours of actual building work done.

Someone once asked, "How much the project is costing?"   My answer; "Don't know ... I'm so slow, materials cost is not an issue!"

My point is; the more work you do for yourself ... especially if paying for out-of-pocket ... the better off you will ultimately be.

[Shelley]

Sounds like a plan to me.  Get it closed in.  Talk to the inspectors if you haven't already to see what they want to get a CO.  Try to use your $$ to get to that point.  They try to do finishing out of pocket as much as you can.  

Trying to avoid a mortgage is a good idea.  They wind up with too much control.

Forget the naysayers.  Plenty of people fail trying this.  But, plenty of people succeed.

[glenn kangiser]

I have never found Means to be something I could use to estimate a job by --I would lose them all.  They are great for a corporation dealing with other corporations or moneyed up people who don't care, but you will never  sell a job to the thrifty ones.

What I am saying is get out your spread sheet and set up a little estimating program of your own then plug in costs and play with it as you wish.  You can try all variables yourself and change them as you want to.  You will be surprised at the cost changes you can make in seconds on the spread sheet and see how they change the bottom line.

[n74tg]

I got a good cost estimate from www.building-cost.net.  (it may be .com instead).  You enter info about the house you want to build, and the construction quality level (4 quality levels), where you want to build (zip code) and it returns you a detailed list.  You can change quality levels and re-do it if desired; and you can save the results for later reference.

I was pretty impressed with it...and it's FREE.

[Daddymem]

Nice find!  The quick calculators seem like they may be useful.

[Amanda_931]

right the first time.

http://www.building-cost.net/

And it looked pretty much OK for what I specified.

(but I didn't run the same specs for Hawaii!)

[Billy Bob]

From the "for what it's worth department";
whilst waiting for the plans to arrive,  did a print out of the material's list for the Little Houses, then signed on to the Home Depot contractor's site.  You can get a good idea of current materials cost, if you have the patience to navigate back and forth.  Might be a good idea to consolidate the materials list first, i.e. add the 2x6x12's for the rim joists to the same item for roof rafters, so's ya only have to do that item one time.

I bungled it the first time, because if you run to the john without saving the materials list, it times out and you lose the darn thing.  I'll try again, and let you know what the per square foot looks like for the Prescott area.

[jonseyhay]

Daddymem,
Here are some planning doc's that you may find useful. They include an excel spreadsheet you can modify for your own use.
jonesy.
http://www.runtime.com.au/house/planning_docs.htm

[Daddymem]

Thanks!

[cynthia rutledge]

I love the building-cost website!!!  It's so helpful to a beginner like me....right now I'm trying to decide between a stick-built vs. a park model or pre-fab home, and this is the first inkling I've had of what a stick-built might cost (more than I expected).  

[jraabe]

I still think there are so many variables in terms of builder skill, shopping abilitites and regional requirements that it is difficult to come up with an overall number.

Better, I think, is to find something nearby that has been recently built that is in the style and quality you expect for your own project. Then find the builder and ask them what they would charge to build the same thing again. Use this to get a general $/sf of living area. When you have that you have a baseline number that can be used with multipliers or factors to estimate your own place.

Go here for those factors: http://www.countryplans.com/costs.html

Owner-builders with good construction skills can save a large part of the labor costs (which might be 1/2 of the total cost per SF). Careful shoppers can also save a good portion of the materials costs.

This has allowed people such as this party
http://www.countryplans.com/keller.html
to build simple houses for a rather small budget.

[Daddymem]

I found a source.  Go to a mortgage company and ask for a dispersement schedule and any other info they have.  We received an Excel spreadsheet with a line item budget from them.  This provides a good list of almost evey item you can think of in house construction.

[cronenwett]

I had used the home depot contractor site a few months ago to estimate material costs for building the 20ft wide 2 story house (so I know how much longer I need to save up).  I tried building-cost.net  today and it was more expensive than my estimate...

...by 400 dollars.   So maybe I'm estimating correctly, though I probably will need to go back and reprice everything now that the hurricanes have come.  Neat site, I like how it gives the line items materials/labor and the markup.

Liz