New Construction Spreadsheet(s)

[Travis Smock]

I am looking at building a personal residence and plan to general it myself to ensure that I use clients from my day job (Real Estate Agent) and save a little. With that said, I have done plenty of flip projects and rental rehabs, but would like to find a spreadsheet or checklist to use while creating a budget and collecting bids to ensure I have all the details covered. Does anyone here have a suggestion for an excel spreadsheet or software to use? Thanks!

[Scott E.]

A budget from one of your flips is going to be close. You're spending money on a lot of the same stuff.

If I were in your shoes I'd be sharing my plans with a couple of local builders and getting some estimates from them. Rough estimates, they don't need to bid the whole job. But you should understand the range that other builders are in.

Out here in AZ for example, as a smaller builder you can build from $250/SF - $450/SF depending on who you hire, the lot conditions, how unique the architecture is, and the finish detail.

That's a big range. Shopping around is going to help you understand where your design falls within that range. It'll give you some good input on what should be in your budget. And who knows, maybe you'll end up deciding you don't want to be an owner/builder. Hiring a local GC who already has all the connections could end up saving you a lot of money.

[Cody Shepherd]

Hey Travis! 

I work as an Estimator for a home builder in Des Moines. I previously worked for a builder that built in Cedar Rapids as well. I hope you were not hit too hard by the Derecho!

I use excel for organizing most of my work and have gotten pretty good at estimating without the fancy software by having an accurate set of architectural drawings and PDF pro (measure tool) to pull dimensions and figure material.

I recently watched a youtube video showing Rehab valuator software that creates the checklist and allows you to enter bids into the software to reference later. The brief overview looked helpful but I have not had much time to review further. Link below

https://rehabvaluator.com/upgrade

If you want someone to review your checklist to make sure it is all inclusive of costs, I could be of some help. Just send me a DM.

I built my own house 3 years ago and was the GC. It was a lot of work but worth it in the end. I hope your project goes well!

[Travis Smock]

Thanks guys. I am probably going to expand on spreadsheets I've created for past projects, but was hopeful there would be one with a little more details and some areas to put multiple bids in from contractors. It shouldn't be too difficult to build out, but I was hoping to save some time! We have a unique project as it's a limited size lot along a river and we are taking a cabin down to replace with a home.

We have the plans drawn up and are just starting to collect bids so we'll see how feasible it is or isn't. 

We're in a small town north of CR so we fortunately were not hit by the derecho, but some land we had for sale in the area definitely was.