@Manolo D. & @Kyle H. Curiosity is great and even a little criticism too; I think I might look at "cost/s.f" differently then what some others might but in the end all that matters is the total dollar amount it costs for a project and what goes into the bank.
The land, overhead, and profit is not included in my cost/s.f. and in this situation he is getting 3 lots for 4k. That comes out to around $1300 per lot which in this case isn't going to throw a cost/s.f estimate off by that much. Everything else needed to build the house is included in my number. Permit fees, utilities, concrete, wood, labor,grass, cleaning, the mailbox, plans, engineering, builders risk, ect. ect.
I dont include the land, commissions, closing costs, overhead, profit, and other items in my cost/s.f. because its highly variable and in my opinion the only reason to use a cost/s.f. is so you can make quick decisions on the front end to see if a deal is worth it or not. Yes, you can add up all your costs at the end of the project and come up with an "ALL IN" cost/s.f. but would you be able to use that number in the future as a basis if it was partly based on variable costs?
The last true SPEC we built came out to 130k for a 3/2 with a total sqft of 2016 sqft (conditioned & non-conditioned). We didn't self perform any work, used all legal subs(liability insurance and WC), payed for most of the materials but did go to some subs for labor and materials. Below are a few pictures. The buyer did pay for some extras (misc. items less than 5k I believe) and I backed out our credits to come up with our true cost of 130k. This comes out to about $65/sqft before land, overhead, profit, commissions, and closing costs.
It for sure can be done at this price if you are building standard/entry level homes but if you are a builder charging an investor at $65k/sqft "all in" you wont make any money unless you have some serious serious volume.
