Build Your Own House - Cost Estimating

How much does it cost to build a house? The current true direct cost of building a new house is usually a closely guarded secret. But, you should be able to build a new home anywhere in the United States for $80.00 to $110 per square foot (or more) for labor and materials.

These costs per square foot do not include a home builder's, or General Contractor’s, Profit & Overhead, or land.

The cost of land (building site) varies tremendously depending mainly on location.

The breakdown of the selling price or market value of a new home is ideally as follows:

25% material, 25% labor, 25% land cost, 12.5% builder profit, & 12.5% builder overhead.

All builders must constantly balance the material, labor, land & overhead costs when estimating the cost of building a new home. This is what cost estimating is all about.

So, if you absolutely must have a certain expensive material item or subcontractor, you have to compromise and spend less on something else in order to stay within your budget.

All this compromising and cost balancing is done in the planning stage of construction.

Be sure to read my Cost Estimating Explained page. It discusses the entire process of cost estimating, as well as using a spreadsheet to control costs.

And, on the Getting Started page you'll find excellent and FREE cost estimating software called Building Costs by City & State that utilizes the latest in construction estimating software.

-If you are your own General Contractor, you’re in charge!
-Try to keep costs as low as you can.
-That’s why you must use a spreadsheet to track category costs!
-Cost Estimating is the #1 job for a General Contractor. Nothing else comes close.
-To make this job easier, use a properly formatted spreadsheet. Being properly formatted makes the job easy and almost foolproof.

If you have and use Excel, here is a FREE Excel “lender friendly” formatted spreadsheet.

If you don’t have Excel, don’t know how to format Excel, then download my FREE custom-made software and Lender friendly formatted spreadsheet from our spreadsheet page.

You might want to take a peek at  a web sample of our spreadsheet here. It will give you an idea how my Lender friendly formatted spreadsheets look and work.

You will notice in the examples below as much as $30 difference in cost per square foot in building costs...excluding land.

You will discover as you explore the Cost to Build Calculator that this difference in cost per square foot is due to many reasons, including different types of foundations, roof pitches, quality of building materials, home design, design and number of windows, and so on. 

2,000 sq. ft., simple design = $80 per sq ft = $160,000. Built on a $80,000 lot. Appraisal of $320,000 = you might save $80,000 or more.

2,200 sq ft steeper roof, 3 car garage, stone trim, etc. = $90 per sq ft = $198,000. Built on a $100,000 lot. Appraisal of $398,000 = you might save $99,000 or more.

2,400 sq ft, more glass, porch, hip roof, etc = $100 per sq ft = $240,000. Built on a $120,000 lot. Appraisal of $480,000 = you might save $120,000 or more.

2,600 sq ft, more complex design & costs = $110 per sq ft = $286,000. Built on a $143,000 lot. Appraisal of $572,000 = you might save $143,000 or more.

The National Association of Home Builders in their recent report shows the current average cost to build a house is $79.67 per sq. ft excluding land, builder profit and overhead, financing costs, and marketing and sales costs.

Does all this encourage you to build your own house or buy a new home? I certainly hope so.

Good luck, Carl Heldmann