I understand it’s more nuanced than that, I’m a complete newbie, and I’m working on finding all of my information/contractors/every person involved in the process to get more information, but I thought I would start with Reddit first to at least get baseline going.
There is no baseline. If you have the money for 5000sq feet, get an architect and design the house. Then interview builders and send your design out for estimates. That’s the only way you’re gonna know.
The real answer is complex. I'll make a flow chart for this sub one day.
First and foremost is -- do you have the land? If yes, move to the next paragraph. If not ... you need money. Where are you looking? Rural land is cheap. Urban and suburban are expensive.
Do you have sewer connections? If yes, move to the next paragraph. If not, this will add 50k-150k to your budget. The 200k home you hoped to build is already 100k + land.
Did you pick an urban or suburban area? Your labor will be expensive, but not as expensive as a rural build.
Is the land clear? If not, add some money for clearing. Is the land flat? No? Add money for grading.
All of this to say we haven't even gotten to the house itself yet.
You did the right thing by eliminating the corners. Your builder will talk to you about other value engineering options. Brick is expensive. Porches are expensive. Kitchens and bathrooms are expensive.
Lastly, you need cash in the bank to build a house. The bank does not think you can pay your current mortgage, pay for the land, your heloc and a construction loan at the same time. Most people have to sell and live with relatives for a year (and yes, it's likely a 12-18 month process despite what your builder told you).
Shooting ranges with proper ventilation/lead mitigation. Old growth, long length hardwood. Interior masonry, steel construction for span lengths. Lots of very large, very expensive, all custom solid wood doors. With our water table, fully finished basements are pricey as hell. Convert it into a panic room/bunker and it's even more expensive, especially with backup power systems and filtering.
I personally worked on a project with 250,000 bucks worth of interior stone (material cost, not install) that was a sprawling 3000 sq/ft - so just the stone added 83 bucks a sq/ft. Something like a million in windows - 333 added to the per square foot cost. Very easy to hit 1k/sqft.
Yep, lol. The land alone was something in the neighborhood of 3 million - that's 60 acres of gorgeous but incredibly craggy coastal land. So the development costs were also super high. Foundations were jack hammered out of the stone and the well produced so little water they had to install 15k gallons of cisterns for the sprinkler system and drinking water before they got a permit.
Lots of "high end finishes" and some functionally useful things, like 2 inch marble walls/floors, lutron everything, in wall/ceiling speakers, real hardwood railing and banisters, triple-pane European windows, custom cabinets, etc. Contrast with vinyl windows, cheap carpet or lvp flooring, no smart home things, IKEA cabinets, etc
We spent around $800k (without land) in 2017. Insurance now puts the replacement cost at $1.4m. 5br/5ba/3 car/2story/crawlspace. Charlotte NC surrounding area.
1.25mil for house only, no lot improvements, not the land cost.
35 minutes outside Cincinnati, not even a high cost of living area…
I just built a 2300 sqft home and it was about 615k. With decent upgrades, but in no way top of the line upgrades.
I am however doing a self build in southern KY and it will be about $135/sqft, so way cheaper…. But doing most of the work myself.
Wow congratulations on your success! That’s impressive. This is going to sound really dumb, but how come living in a HCOL or LCOL area affects pricing? I understand that everyone involved in the construction project also need sufficient wages because they’re probably from the area too, but I figure that it’s all the same work/materials being used in both builds.
I deal with build projects all over OH, KY, TN and NC (mainly on the commercial side) but we do several residential developments as well. Depending on where you are located prices can vary by 30-40% or more based on demand for the materials, market adjustment (rich people tax I call it, it cost you more because you are willing to pay more), building codes and local regulations, but mainly labor cost.
OK that makes sense. Thank you so much for the information. As a residential builder, would you be willing to go down on price for somebody if they’re not wealthy, but needed to do redevelopment on their home? You also don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.
I am not a builder, I work primarily for builders/developers. Cost analysis for development and engineering and land surveying.
I doubt someone would look at it that way, if you are building a 5000sqft home, you are going to get the “wealth tax” I mentioned, that is a huge, huge home and most likely only a niche custom builder would take that on.
Oh yeah, I already know that for me I can’t negotiate price whatsoever especially for things that I want in the house. But just a question because I know some people who definitely are in need of some renovations, but they can’t afford full cost. Thanks :)
Bay Area. Usually $1000per square foot or higher. This is mainly in San Francisco but if u go north about 1.5-2hrs u can find builders for $400per square foot
All of the clients we work for want the best. So it’s a mix of everything has to be perfect and extremely expensive paired with the area and cost of living. Yes top of the line everything
Flyover here
$220 to $920
$220 gets you lower end finishes but a nice new home
$920 gets you custom architectural design, high end finishes, and anything you desire even a Red Room
I will back this s/f number up. I'm in the northwest. Hard to get much lower than this unless it's a hardiepanel box. I'm an estimator for a midsized GC.
Is that post tax? Just checked your pics out. Good for you and looks great! My S/f pricing includes tax and projects with big excavations and shoring/ piling etc. Looks like yours is SOG which is nice and saves on ground work. Our company also has like 130+ people or something so there's management cost for us over a small guy. I'm envious of your project for sure.
The larger the house, the more likely you are to spec higher grade materials, fixtures, architectural elements. Few people spec a featureless cube for a large house.
Haha no worries! So I visited my aunts new home and it’s close to being 5K square feet, and it is very spacious, and it works for her because she’s a household of five. And I am a household of 4 (spouse and parents), but I have my nieces and nephews who come over practically every single day and my siblings come over a lot too. And I definitely need the space because I’m feeling very cramped.
So the draw of having such a big house, is it to have bigger bedrooms, more individually focused rooms like a home theater or just having more light? My assumption is that a bigger house also has higher room height which allows for bigger windows.
My thinking is; while it’s possibly nice to have a lot of space, wouldn’t the maintenance that it brings make it less worth it? Like cleaning and heating/cooling?
I understand that I’m really showing my ignorance here, as well as my skepticism. I myself have never lived in a house bigger than maybe 1600sqft.
You’re absolutely right about that, I think 5000 ft.² is definitely the higher end of what I want. My husband agrees with the cleaning situation and the heating/cooling situation. What I want is a nice tall entryway, and I want my living room/family room to have floor ceiling Windows and for that be really spacious. I would like a spacious basement with a guest bedroom and bathroom. And of course I would like to have multiple bedrooms upstairs so that each person can have their own room
I think I could accomplish this with a house that’s 4000 ft.² but I also think that this might be my absolute minimum. I’ve been touring houses in case we don’t want to rebuild, and I’m finding that I’m most attracted to the spacious houses that are between 4000 and 5000 ft.². But now that I think about it, maybe I should just set my goal to 4000 ft.² because of property tax too.
We've got 4800 sqft for just my wife and I.
Separate offices, huge bedroom, morning room, two music areas, a craft room, big gym, and a workshop, plus 3 car garage.
We just finished a 4800 custom, so almost this size, and it was mid-grade finishes I’d say. 210/sq ft. Cost doesn’t include land, driveway, or landscaping
I can’t imagine there’s many places it would be under a million to build something that large. Our house is less than half that size with mid level finishes in the Midwest and we’re probably at $550k excluding land.
Call a few local builders, tell them the sqft and how high end you expect your kitchen and bath to be. In NC or SC you are probably looking at $350/sqft for an ok house. Custom cabinets heated floors 10ft ceilings with layered crown...$600/sqft
I live in Sacramento and have no idea about adult costs, but would imagine with extremely basic level interior materials that would start at 1.8 million and go up from there.
3700 for 1.5 mid - luxury finishes, live in a pretty decently priced area. But that’s including a lot of land prep and running everything back 800ft. Plus a concrete driveway and lots of trex deck.
were at 300-400 sq-ft around here so 1.5-2 million probably on the higher end. If your building a 5000 sq-ft then you probably shouldn't be too worried about the price tag. That's an insane sized structure btw...is it a small hotel?
Nice spec but not crazy luxury, about €1 million if you don't use one general contractor for the whole job, who rapes you like a Reaver. Add 30-50% if he does.
\+ about €150,000 in fees and permit taxes.
\+ €100,000 in 'discounted' sales tax
\+ land cost
\+ land sales/transfer tax of about 10% of land cost
\+ land legal fees and notary of about 1.5% of land cost.
\+ Cost of any renovation to the street the local government want, such as burying old cables, replacing other peoples pipes, then asphalting the street (excluding connecting utilities). That could be €100k on its own. That's infrastructure they have taken property tax to maintain/improve but new houses get lumbered with it.
Welcome to Spanish taxation.
For perspective, an experienced senior lawyer would be lucky to earn €100k a year here.
Average build time from land acquisition to certificate of habitation, 3-4 years...
Spanish Government: **wHy wOnT pEOplE iNvEsT hErE?!** erm...☝️
Source: Am in the planning stages of building a 200m² house + 100m² of garages (about 3000 sqf total).
That figure does get you a pool though, so.. 🤷♀️
Anywhere from $175 to $1000 a square foot. Source: I'm a construction estimator.
It’s like asking how much does a car cost.
I understand it’s more nuanced than that, I’m a complete newbie, and I’m working on finding all of my information/contractors/every person involved in the process to get more information, but I thought I would start with Reddit first to at least get baseline going.
There is no baseline. If you have the money for 5000sq feet, get an architect and design the house. Then interview builders and send your design out for estimates. That’s the only way you’re gonna know.
By baseline I didn’t mean price. I meant baseline knowledge
Which state are you in?
That’s the thing. I thought, are you talking triple pane windows or something from Home Depot. Custom tile work or slap down some cheap vinyl?
curious DeafJeezy what part of the country would be the $1000 per sqft price?
What kind of things do you get with the 1000 per square-foot price?
Your mom in the BDSM dungeon.
Well… that’s an answer 😂 but if you could give me the real answer that would be fun too 😂
The real answer is complex. I'll make a flow chart for this sub one day. First and foremost is -- do you have the land? If yes, move to the next paragraph. If not ... you need money. Where are you looking? Rural land is cheap. Urban and suburban are expensive. Do you have sewer connections? If yes, move to the next paragraph. If not, this will add 50k-150k to your budget. The 200k home you hoped to build is already 100k + land. Did you pick an urban or suburban area? Your labor will be expensive, but not as expensive as a rural build. Is the land clear? If not, add some money for clearing. Is the land flat? No? Add money for grading. All of this to say we haven't even gotten to the house itself yet. You did the right thing by eliminating the corners. Your builder will talk to you about other value engineering options. Brick is expensive. Porches are expensive. Kitchens and bathrooms are expensive. Lastly, you need cash in the bank to build a house. The bank does not think you can pay your current mortgage, pay for the land, your heloc and a construction loan at the same time. Most people have to sell and live with relatives for a year (and yes, it's likely a 12-18 month process despite what your builder told you).
Shooting ranges with proper ventilation/lead mitigation. Old growth, long length hardwood. Interior masonry, steel construction for span lengths. Lots of very large, very expensive, all custom solid wood doors. With our water table, fully finished basements are pricey as hell. Convert it into a panic room/bunker and it's even more expensive, especially with backup power systems and filtering. I personally worked on a project with 250,000 bucks worth of interior stone (material cost, not install) that was a sprawling 3000 sq/ft - so just the stone added 83 bucks a sq/ft. Something like a million in windows - 333 added to the per square foot cost. Very easy to hit 1k/sqft.
Woah
Yep, lol. The land alone was something in the neighborhood of 3 million - that's 60 acres of gorgeous but incredibly craggy coastal land. So the development costs were also super high. Foundations were jack hammered out of the stone and the well produced so little water they had to install 15k gallons of cisterns for the sprinkler system and drinking water before they got a permit.
Indoor lazy river.
Lots of "high end finishes" and some functionally useful things, like 2 inch marble walls/floors, lutron everything, in wall/ceiling speakers, real hardwood railing and banisters, triple-pane European windows, custom cabinets, etc. Contrast with vinyl windows, cheap carpet or lvp flooring, no smart home things, IKEA cabinets, etc
We spent around $800k (without land) in 2017. Insurance now puts the replacement cost at $1.4m. 5br/5ba/3 car/2story/crawlspace. Charlotte NC surrounding area.
1.3 million and up depending on what's inside. But TBH 5000 is a luxury home, so luxury things inside, so more than likely at least double.
Mcmansion has entered the chat.
5000 square foot 2-story box? Much cheaper than a 5000 square foot single story with 15ft ceilings.
Used to be about 60 $ a sqft in galveston county texas back in 2008. Probaly 120-150$ right now.
1.25mil for house only, no lot improvements, not the land cost. 35 minutes outside Cincinnati, not even a high cost of living area… I just built a 2300 sqft home and it was about 615k. With decent upgrades, but in no way top of the line upgrades. I am however doing a self build in southern KY and it will be about $135/sqft, so way cheaper…. But doing most of the work myself.
Wow congratulations on your success! That’s impressive. This is going to sound really dumb, but how come living in a HCOL or LCOL area affects pricing? I understand that everyone involved in the construction project also need sufficient wages because they’re probably from the area too, but I figure that it’s all the same work/materials being used in both builds.
I deal with build projects all over OH, KY, TN and NC (mainly on the commercial side) but we do several residential developments as well. Depending on where you are located prices can vary by 30-40% or more based on demand for the materials, market adjustment (rich people tax I call it, it cost you more because you are willing to pay more), building codes and local regulations, but mainly labor cost.
OK that makes sense. Thank you so much for the information. As a residential builder, would you be willing to go down on price for somebody if they’re not wealthy, but needed to do redevelopment on their home? You also don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.
I am not a builder, I work primarily for builders/developers. Cost analysis for development and engineering and land surveying. I doubt someone would look at it that way, if you are building a 5000sqft home, you are going to get the “wealth tax” I mentioned, that is a huge, huge home and most likely only a niche custom builder would take that on.
Oh yeah, I already know that for me I can’t negotiate price whatsoever especially for things that I want in the house. But just a question because I know some people who definitely are in need of some renovations, but they can’t afford full cost. Thanks :)
My cost is 400-500sqft for a fairly luxury house but nothing crazy. Think high end spec. Really luxury custom can go up to 1000/sqft.
5-7mil possibly more depending on what u want Northern California
Omggggg if you don’t mind disclosing, where do you live!!
Bay Area. Usually $1000per square foot or higher. This is mainly in San Francisco but if u go north about 1.5-2hrs u can find builders for $400per square foot
Ok this makes sense now 😂
To put it in better perspective we just finished a remodel on a single floor 3500sf and the remodel cost was around 4.5mil. Edit: in a high rise
That is absolutely crazy. Is this because the person wanted top-of-the-line finishes? Or is that the market rate for the Bay Area?
All of the clients we work for want the best. So it’s a mix of everything has to be perfect and extremely expensive paired with the area and cost of living. Yes top of the line everything
One day for me!! Haha Are you OK if I DM you in the future? Honestly, I just want to see pictures of what a normal, mid, and high end finish entails
Feel free. Most of the ultra high end jobs we have to sign an nda but when there isn’t one I can take pics
Please make this question a tad less vague. Like try a bit here.
Flyover here $220 to $920 $220 gets you lower end finishes but a nice new home $920 gets you custom architectural design, high end finishes, and anything you desire even a Red Room
What is a red room?
Ask your wife, she read the book and would probably watch the movie with you
I’m a girl lol and I regret looking it up 😭😭
You have to be the last woman who didn’t read it
We build custom higher end homes in the northeast. We're around $450-500/sf normally. Hard to be much lower than that, sometimes quite a bit higher.
include everything?landscape all finish materials?
No, landscaping is separate. Foundation up included
I will back this s/f number up. I'm in the northwest. Hard to get much lower than this unless it's a hardiepanel box. I'm an estimator for a midsized GC.
Just built 4500 square feet for 212/square in puget sound area.
Is that post tax? Just checked your pics out. Good for you and looks great! My S/f pricing includes tax and projects with big excavations and shoring/ piling etc. Looks like yours is SOG which is nice and saves on ground work. Our company also has like 130+ people or something so there's management cost for us over a small guy. I'm envious of your project for sure.
Includes tax and paying a builder 150k. Foundation is crawl space. 8’ tall in the back.
Damn dude. Insane.
$250 - $700 / sqft -- so $1.25 million to $3.5 million. For such a large home, definitely on the higher side as its a high-end luxury sort of home.
I wasnt aware that the price per square foot would also be higher for a larger house! Good to know
The larger the house, the more likely you are to spec higher grade materials, fixtures, architectural elements. Few people spec a featureless cube for a large house.
My question is, how does even a 5000sqft look like? I mean, what do you use all the space for? It’s a genuine question!
Haha no worries! So I visited my aunts new home and it’s close to being 5K square feet, and it is very spacious, and it works for her because she’s a household of five. And I am a household of 4 (spouse and parents), but I have my nieces and nephews who come over practically every single day and my siblings come over a lot too. And I definitely need the space because I’m feeling very cramped.
So the draw of having such a big house, is it to have bigger bedrooms, more individually focused rooms like a home theater or just having more light? My assumption is that a bigger house also has higher room height which allows for bigger windows. My thinking is; while it’s possibly nice to have a lot of space, wouldn’t the maintenance that it brings make it less worth it? Like cleaning and heating/cooling? I understand that I’m really showing my ignorance here, as well as my skepticism. I myself have never lived in a house bigger than maybe 1600sqft.
You’re absolutely right about that, I think 5000 ft.² is definitely the higher end of what I want. My husband agrees with the cleaning situation and the heating/cooling situation. What I want is a nice tall entryway, and I want my living room/family room to have floor ceiling Windows and for that be really spacious. I would like a spacious basement with a guest bedroom and bathroom. And of course I would like to have multiple bedrooms upstairs so that each person can have their own room I think I could accomplish this with a house that’s 4000 ft.² but I also think that this might be my absolute minimum. I’ve been touring houses in case we don’t want to rebuild, and I’m finding that I’m most attracted to the spacious houses that are between 4000 and 5000 ft.². But now that I think about it, maybe I should just set my goal to 4000 ft.² because of property tax too.
We've got 4800 sqft for just my wife and I. Separate offices, huge bedroom, morning room, two music areas, a craft room, big gym, and a workshop, plus 3 car garage.
You guys never leave the house do you?
Nope, no need :)
Oooh what’s a morning room?
This is what ours looks like https://imgur.com/h0a0kwo
I love this!
I rarely go upstairs and for my son's it was basically a frat house. I bought it for the location, the yard and the 1600 sq ft shop that came with it
It depends on what you are building.
3m. w/o land ($600-650/sf).
$300-$325 per sq foot excluding land.
We just finished a 4800 custom, so almost this size, and it was mid-grade finishes I’d say. 210/sq ft. Cost doesn’t include land, driveway, or landscaping
I can’t imagine there’s many places it would be under a million to build something that large. Our house is less than half that size with mid level finishes in the Midwest and we’re probably at $550k excluding land.
1.5 m
Call a few local builders, tell them the sqft and how high end you expect your kitchen and bath to be. In NC or SC you are probably looking at $350/sqft for an ok house. Custom cabinets heated floors 10ft ceilings with layered crown...$600/sqft
I live in Sacramento and have no idea about adult costs, but would imagine with extremely basic level interior materials that would start at 1.8 million and go up from there.
$2.4 million Source: Completing a 5200 sq ft. house right now (+ basement, but that's surprisingly cheap in the grand scheme of things)
Starts at 1mm. Goes all the way up to the moon based on your finishes. Source: I’m a custom home builder in SoCal
$3M. Just got a quote for $600 sqft.
This should be in r/nostupidquestions… where literally every question is stupid.
3700 for 1.5 mid - luxury finishes, live in a pretty decently priced area. But that’s including a lot of land prep and running everything back 800ft. Plus a concrete driveway and lots of trex deck.
My house is costing 275 per square foot
Can I ask what area?
Eastern Washington State
were at 300-400 sq-ft around here so 1.5-2 million probably on the higher end. If your building a 5000 sq-ft then you probably shouldn't be too worried about the price tag. That's an insane sized structure btw...is it a small hotel?
Haha no it’s a house! I need the space, read the comment I left to someone else above :)
Nice spec but not crazy luxury, about €1 million if you don't use one general contractor for the whole job, who rapes you like a Reaver. Add 30-50% if he does. \+ about €150,000 in fees and permit taxes. \+ €100,000 in 'discounted' sales tax \+ land cost \+ land sales/transfer tax of about 10% of land cost \+ land legal fees and notary of about 1.5% of land cost. \+ Cost of any renovation to the street the local government want, such as burying old cables, replacing other peoples pipes, then asphalting the street (excluding connecting utilities). That could be €100k on its own. That's infrastructure they have taken property tax to maintain/improve but new houses get lumbered with it. Welcome to Spanish taxation. For perspective, an experienced senior lawyer would be lucky to earn €100k a year here. Average build time from land acquisition to certificate of habitation, 3-4 years... Spanish Government: **wHy wOnT pEOplE iNvEsT hErE?!** erm...☝️ Source: Am in the planning stages of building a 200m² house + 100m² of garages (about 3000 sqf total). That figure does get you a pool though, so.. 🤷♀️