Cost per square foot to build a house?
 

I will be building a house next year and was just wondering what it cost you to build yours. We will be subcontracting it out and will be doing the painting and floors ourselves (well family members who have experience in doing these things).

Wont be building an extravagant home but a nice home we can call our own. Will be building about 2,000 sq ft living. Lafayette area

What did you spend? Did you do some of it yourself?

Any info is appreciated.

Lafyette your looking at $100 -$125 per sq ft

If he subs it all out himself as his on gc? I bet he can get that down to about $90.

Buddy of mine just built a house in youngsville for $106/ sq ft including his lot. It was not a custom house though

I did it when I first built my house and I'm going through that right now on a 900 sq ft addition. I really wish I would have just paid a gc to handle all of it for me. It is such a headache to deal with on top of work, and it's almost a full time job just tracking down my damn plumber! Now my wife is due in 4 weeks and opening weekend is here and we still aren't done......... It did save me a good bit of money though.

Everyone I know who subbed their house wishes they would have got a GC.

You looking at about $90-$110 if you do it yourself.

I contracted my black in, insulation, sheetrock, flooring, cabinets, brick, and roofing.
I did my own electrical, painting, interior trim, exterior trim, and cabinet finishing.
My father in law did my A/C work for pretty cheap.
My uncle did my plumbing for pretty cheap.
I have a 2.5 acre lot and a 30x40 shop... I was still under $85 per sq ft of living with my lot and building included...

My house was built in 2009 and it is not a bare minimum house... it has granite countertops, custom cabinets, tile floors, upstairs game room, 9' ceilings, etc.

If you build modestly and do some of the work yourself you can get it done cheaper than $100-$110 sq ft... heck you can buy a nice house for that price range.

I just finished two houses in Beaumont tx. The lots were $45,000 each and I had to use windstorm engineers. The houses were spec homes but nothing spared in style or quality. I have $110 per foot in them.

I build houses for a living , the homes I build start at 200/ sqft w/o land and have gone 300+/ ft. These are very high end homes that take 9 months - 2 years to build . As for building a house for 90/ sqft , if I took out all the expensive finishes( marble, wolf/subzero etc) I still don't see how this is possible w/o skimping on quality.

i also build houses for a living and i think getting a builder is a good idea. if your familiar with construction and have the time to supervise then you can save 25-35k on the total price. my only word of advice is do not under any circumstances (no matter how bad the sob story is) pay anyone their last draw untill they are 100% complete with their portion of the job. also investigate how to get lien wavers done so you won't have a lien on your place if the sub fails to pay for his materials.

if you sub it out you can get a basic house done for about 90$ and a really nice house for $110

I agree complete with this statement.

Lol , don't think so what?

Nothin. J/j

I am building right now, have concrete scheduled for saturday (in sulphur area). If you are just subcontracting your work out it may be hard to get down to $90. Think you would have to do a lot of work yourself to get that low. I am at $127 per ft living, with some float in there, and the living cost is elevated because we have a little over 2000sq ft of unheated area. Thats not including the land, clearing, dirt work, or house pad. Just home construction. But I only got estimates from contractors that I had good references for and I did get 4-6 estimates on every facet of the house. I had hoped to see the $90 range when we started planning but can't get close to that.

I would still get a couple of prices from reputable builders. The discounts and contractor pricing we receive on labor and material may bring the potential savings of self contracting down quite a bit. You may find out your not saving that much and may want to transfer the headaches and liability to a builder if the savings are not great enough. ( the builder and his insurance would be responsible for injuries, foundation failure, etc. )

oh youre a house building expert now too
http://www.saltycajun.com/forum/atta...1&d=1341804808

I just got a quote from a builder in lafayette, it was 150 a square foot. And that's not including the land or cabinets!

i don't know what type of houses ya'll are building but as an example i backed out the cost of the lot on this house and it came to $113 per foot. as you can see it's a nice house with 10' ceilings through out except 12' in the living room. tray ceilings, 11' walk through shower, double garage, back patio with fireplace, and outdoor kitchen with grill, sink, and fridge. and that includes the sod, landscaping, fencing and appliances.
http://www.vaneatonromero.com/L14256632

not in the photos is the brick arch i put between the living and kitchen and the cypress beams on the kitchen ceiling

Im not knocking these lower priced homes, But they are not what i build as far as level of finish, detail , time involved, and over all quality. The process it takes me to build a home , even if i scaled back the finishes i dont have a clue how someone can build a house for that price that will not have issues down the road. I understand my homes are not for everyone , but i can promise you they way we build cannot be done by everyone either. on average the homes i build regardless of size is the equivalent of building 5-6 "regular" homes because of the amount of detail / engineering / etc .

The guy said NOT an extravagant home. He can do it himself easily for $100 per sqft not including the land cost. New homes are being sold in Youngsville, most expensive area around here, all day long for $130-$150 sqft turn key finished.

i looked at those photos, the stucco front with the diagonal timbers - how is that flashed? that wood with expand and contract with the weather creating gaps for water to enter. the shot of the foundation shows it was formed above grade and they allowed concrete to "overflow" under the form( thats the kind of detail we pay attention to ( our foundations get formed 6-10" BELOW grade to make sure it does not look sloppy) . its just lots of things like that , that we do and other don't , yes it costs more to do all this stuff and i understand that the price point you mentioned it just might not be possible . but cheap labor who build so quick you cant even catch mistakes before they happen = a 5-10 year house not a house thats gonna last a lifetime+

Im well aware of what he said , thats why i said if i backed out all the fancy finishes / appliances/ etc and strictly figured a solid built / quality home that will last a long time. Are solid doors extravagant to you?? What about #1 grade framing lumber?? what about 3500-4000 lb Concrete for your foundation?
I see this stuff all the time....triple crown molding blah blah blah Whats the point of even putting it up if you can see every seam??

I understand your point totally. But your homes and clientele are in a world of their own. We talking a house for us Po' folk. ;)

im not trying to come off like that either ... you are correct the homes i build do have a larger than normal budget .......BUT there is right way and a wrong way to build houses , to often do i see builders doing things that are not up to code, not the right kind of fasteners, etc and that has nothing to do with budget , its plain and simple cutting corners that should never be cut .

No, you weren't coming off like that. I was serious, your stuff is amazing. That's why it costs what it costs.

Thank you!

Pox if your arse would travel to madisonville you would have built my house.

Thanks! We get offers all the time but I don't think I could deliver the same quality as we do here since it's so far away . Did you build yet? I have a buddy that builds over there

Pox, what's the average sq ft of the houses you build?

Yes we finished and moved in. Was pretty painless. Either I got ripped off or it is much more expensive to build over here bc I wasn't no where near $130 sq ft

it varies , the smallest is usually around 3000 sqft living area and up from there . right now i have a 3100, 3400, 4000, 8000, 4800 sqft. one thing that makes our houses more / foot is the amount of non appraisable sqft ( 3-4 car garages , huge porches/ outdoor kitchens that have 15$/sqft stone flooring on them etc) its a huge contributor . i find the smaller homes usually cost more/ sqft than the larger ones since they still have the same appliances a larger one has and same number of baths etc... ( the expensive parts of the house) just less sqft to divide it into thus making the cost per foot higher

if i could build for 130/ ft i could sell the triton and buy a 70' viking lol

Y u knocking our **** bag houses pox?!

Lol coming from the mouth of dude who his building himself a 10,000 sqft house !!

Yeah but I'm building it for $30/ft. And most of that is labor from splicing all the single wide trailers together

Lmao ....post up some pics of your crack shack .

Those are 6500lb cinder blocks

I see you cheaper it out by not putting a slate roof

That stack is my furnace/water heater/bath exhaust/hood/dryer vent and chimney

How do you vent the meth lab? Seriously ....post some pics

Never vent the meth lab. The only pics I have of my crib are pics of things that are ****ed up that I send to the subs to show them how much they suck.

2015 crba parade of homes. Come see

Serious Question,

How does the final appraisal cost of these homes factor into your build cost? For example, I know 2 people here recently who have built beautiful custom homes in Lafourche Parish and have both had to come up with a substantial amount of out of pocket money to pay the contractor because the bank would not loan them the final amount based on final appraisal. Are you seeing this in the Baton Rouge area?


Also, my nephew got out of HS last year.... he doesn't know what he wants to do for a living. I told him go to work for a General Contractor building homes and learn the business, in 15 year start your own company....... do you think that's a wise career choice?

Depends...... Does he speak Spanish or have a desire to learn? :rotfl:

he took 2 years in HS

Not being a smart @ss but I think the people that can afford to pay for the types of houses pox is building don't deal with banks very much. Maybe I'm wrong though.

I don't worry about appraisal , I worry more about my customers budget that we set before the project, generally I tell them I "think " we can build it between ___ / sqft and _____/ sqft. ( best case/ worse case) if they agree I then begin to price the home and develope allowances / etc. once I complete pricing , sometimes it appraises but most times its higher than the bank is willing to lend so they have to come out of pocket . Not wanting to paint the picture of my clients having no budget or regard for cost because that's not the case . We have to deal with budgets/ allowances etc but they are usually higher than average . The main reason they hire us is because they know and trust we will follow the plans and specs and not cut corners , they spend upwards of 70-80k just on blueprints so they want to make sure they get exactly what the ar****ect drew and use the materials he specs . Most of our plans are 25-40 pages and some come with huge spec books that contain even more detail . Just for example we prime all of the backside of the door and window jambs before they are installed so there is no raw wood anywhere , all of our fascia is back primed before it's installed even if it comes "preprimed" from the factory .
As far as your nephew looking to choose a career path in residential construction . Since this industry has been ruined by cheap illegal labor , you really need either build a ton of production homes and use crap cheap labor or build high end homes with the best subs and be prepared to have to come behind even "the best" subs and fix some of their stuff yourself if you want it done right. Have you nephew call me