Cost per square foot to build a house?

[fishinpox]

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

[Em591991]

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

[fishinpox]

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

[Em591991]

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.

[Em591991]

2015 crba parade of homes. Come see

[swamp snorkler]

Originally Posted by fishinpox

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

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?

[Matt G]

Originally Posted by swamp snorkler

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?

[swamp snorkler]

Originally Posted by Matt G

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

he took 2 years in HS

[bjhooper82]

Originally Posted by swamp snorkler

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?

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.

[fishinpox]

Originally Posted by swamp snorkler

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?

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

[Samarai]

be ready to do alot of monitoring if u are sub contracting the build. We are 70 percent done on our 6000 sq ft home in new orleans. Just finished the framing and windows. electricity and plumbing next week and about to sheetrock DEc. 1. WE got a 300,000 loan and probably have sign off about 200,000, build started august. lot was 100,000 My wife monitors the build since she doesnt have to work and we a have friend who knows the process come once a week to survey the build and make suggestions.

[cgoods17]

Originally Posted by Samarai

be ready to do alot of monitoring if u are sub contracting the build. We are 70 percent done on our 6000 sq ft home in new orleans. Just finished the framing and windows. electricity and plumbing next week and about to sheetrock DEc. 1. WE got a 300,000 loan and probably have sign off about 200,000, build started august. lot was 100,000 My wife monitors the build since she doesnt have to work and we a have friend who knows the process come once a week to survey the build and make suggestions.

well if you havent even started sheetrock i highly doubt you are 70% complete.. i assume if you having a 6k sqft house built then you will have some nice interior finishes.

the fun (interior) is about to start... just sit tight and let us know how far along you are at the end of the year.

[marty f]

we are building a 4000sqft house in N AR and I am doing the GC, as of right now we are 95% done to having it in the dry. I will have 275K into it, that comes out to 68.75 per ft I am figuring that number to double for a finished house.

Its a log house with a full basement and a second, or third floor if you consider the basement the first floor.

[B-Stealth]

Originally Posted by T-TOP

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 just got my first quote today; reading your post makes me feel a little better. I was a little sticker shocked @ 138 a foot just the home construction. The builder only uses legal and insured subs whom he has worked with for many years. He only builds 2-3 houses at a time.

I know too many people that GC their house and regret their decision. It's a builders market right and the contractors are making $$ while they can.

All that being said we're gonna trim that 138 down to about 125 one way or another.