how much to build a house

[Account Closed]

ball park estimate. if comps run on a house at 250k in a neighbhorhood, and every other house is worth 250k as well.

what does it cost to demolish and rebuild that same house?

[J Scott]

The cost of other (non-new construction) houses in the neighborhood have no relationship to the cost you'll incur to build a new house.

Your costs will be based on a lot of factors:

- Location

- Level/type of finishes

- Style of house

- Size of house

- Whether you GC it yourself or hire a builder

- The types of contractors you use

- Your negotiating ability

- How strategic you are with your designs to keep costs down

I've built houses for $60/sf, and I've built similar houses in other locations with different contractors for $90/sf.  I've investigated building the same types of houses in other locations and have estimated up to $200/sf, depending on the contractors I ended up finding.  In other words, there's no simple answer to your question.

There are two ways to get a reasonable idea of the cost for a particular build:

1.  Do the take-offs yourself to get an idea of sub-contractor costs.  If you have renovation experience, that should give you a general idea of what you'll spend on each trade.  For example, if you know that you pay $1/sf for sheetrock installation and finishing, and you know you'll need 8000 square feet of drywall for the house, you can estimate that sheetrock will cost you $8000.  If you do that for each trade, you can get a reasonable idea of the all-in costs.

Of course, you have to have in the stuff that you may not be accustomed to.  For example:

- Architect/drawing fees

- Engineering fees

- Site clearing

- Demolition/removal

- Permits

- Site preparation

- Utilities

So, you'll have to get familiar with those facets of building as well, and you'll have to get a reasonable idea of what those things will cost you.

2. Get the drawings completed and take them to some builders in your area for bids.

If you do #1 and GC the project yourself, you'll pay considerably less than if you go with a builder.  But, if you've never built before (and especially if you don't have a lot of renovation experience), you're probably better off going the #2 route.

Regardless, if you really want to get an idea of build costs, you're going to have to do some legwork and potentially spend some money to get some drawings done.