Building a house, is this normal ?

[grfox92]

The last custom build price/sqft I heard from a builder was $300/sqft, and that was some years ago. At $520k, you're at less than $250/sqft. I think you might be getting a pretty good deal.

This kind of reminded me something that I wanted to say earlier.

A contractor who gives you a price per sq ft number, unless they are giving you their blueprints on a house they have built several times is a massive red flag.

If you are designing your dream home there is no way anyone builder can say "we're at $275 per sq ft." Its just damn near impossible.

Now if they sit down with your plans and spend a week or 2 doing a full take off and come up with a number and then figure out where they came in at PPSF, thats different.

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[ThunderJack49]

Quick answers/questions

House is 2100 SF
What is GM? Is that general manager / general contractor?

Its just me and her. We each have 1 child, both grown and gone.

Both in the medical field, she travels to make good money. Which is one reason I've questioned this build. She will hardly be there.

Property is on a ridge, its flat on the build site, the driveway best I calculated using my truck is a 12% climb.
Future plans are some sort of pole barn, we have a definite need for a small tractor for land maintenance.

The 350.000 was actually 400,000 per the builder for cost over run.

I am 57 and finally trying to retire for the last time soon. I really don't want to be strapped to this kind of money. $500 k and I am out of the plan.

I guess the thing I don't understand is how do you go from $350 to 520 overnight??

We have found similar houses with property for around the same cost. We can do a little work, say "updates"

I don’t know the specifics of your conversation with him but construction language can be very difficult sometimes and people are often talking past each other.
The price swing could be that he threw out a ballpark number and then once he took a stronger look at the project, decided he needed to raise the price. I wouldn’t attribute it to shady practices.
Building has a tremendous amount of variability and is one of the few places in our society where active negotiations are common and expected. You are also dealing with individuals who all run and operate their businesses with different situations and values that determine how they price.
Building is flat out expensive. Builders are in short supply and the external costs are many.
All that to be said, I think the human factor of dealing with different builders is unique and uncomfortable to consumers who are used to dealing with giant companies that essentially set a universal price to all things (Walmart, Amazon, Target).
It’s likely not malice, if that is any consolation.

 

[fngTony]

The laborers here are 225-250 cash a day. The skilled guys are $350 a day.

$350 as a contractor is poverty pay but $350 as an employee would be good.

 

[hikenhunt]

I did a custom build that finished just before covid hit. I hired a GM and it was worth it for me. He was able to get better pricing on materials than I could have and because of his relationship with his subs, they actually showed up when needed. I think about the time I spent with my family rather than stressing about coordinating subs and believe it was money well spent. I also believe my GM was in the top tier of contractors and that isn't everyone's experience.

 

[IdahoBeav]

This kind of reminded me something that I wanted to say earlier.

A contractor who gives you a price per sq ft number, unless they are giving you their blueprints on a house they have built several times is a massive red flag.

If you are designing your dream home there is no way anyone builder can say "we're at $275 per sq ft." Its just damn near impossible.

Now if they sit down with your plans and spend a week or 2 doing a full take off and come up with a number and then figure out where they came in at PPSF, thats different.

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Price/sqft is just a high level estimate based on average cost of recent past projects. It's not a quote. I work in civil site design, and I even occasionally use this method for rough estimates on design for the site based only on the building square footage, and I don't design anything inside of the building. It's just a way to give a client a quick number that will enable them to agree to proceed with a formal proposal/bid.

 

[jayhawk]

Anyone involved in the housing market (real estate agents, contractors, loan agents, etc.) have been gorging themselves for the last 5 years and have been able to command extremely high prices.

I feel that things are about to change however, and things will begin to reset and drive the paper tigers out of the market

 

[Whaledriver]

It takes time but do a pull off of plans. Shop material and see where you are. Material shopping is a lot of negotiation with suppliers. I imagine you can get fairly competitive pricing for material. Now, finding a builder is to let you do that might be difficult as that is part of their profit. I GCd my shop and saved a ton of money. A house that small should be fairly straightforward. If nothing else you will truly find out where the pricing is, or is not. Good luck!!

 

[Silveroddo]

Reliable, quality skilled tradesmen and labourers are rare and expensive. This may have changed but at one point the US got most of its lumber from Canada, now the tariffs, add in the building boom that happening in some states that are taking all the Liberal state refugees. When I built my house the builder was awesome at showing me where I was wasting money.

Example: I wanted this certain granite countertops for the Kitchen. He showed me two samples and I really couldn't tell the difference. One would cost $14,000 and the other $3,000. One was from Oklahoma and the other packed off a mountain on a donkey's back in South America...

Also builders talk to one another and are probably friends. They will all stay close enough to one another that everyone gets a cut of the pie...

And the $3000 option was the one that got packed off of a mountain on a donkeys back in South America?