The only true way to price new construction is to design the basic plan, then price all the finishes from the least expensive to the most expensive options you would put in. 

That sounds great, but it is expensive, stressful, and really sucks to actually go through it.I would posit the question "What can you do that is really hard?"

Replacing the fiberglass surround with a white one is not that expensive either.

I was wondering if anyone can give me some information/guidance if getting into house hack in NYC (expensive market) is doable or what kind of asset class is better for this area.

The seller for this property is motivated because he never intended to be a landlord and wants to move to Florida.I want to try to get him to understand all of the expenses that I need to incur as an investor and that my offer price comes down to the number my spreadsheet shoots out basically.

The company never paid the $ on time, but eventually always came through. 

Many people accidentally leave out a bunch of their expenses when they are bragging.

Cost to build today would be prohibitively expensive for the return, especially for a non-experienced developer.

Rather than perform tests to make life more expensive these simple steps will cure most issues.

It will almost definitely be more expensive and take longer than you anticipate, and those HMLs aren't cheap.