The Cost of Building a House

The Cost of Building a House
Written by FrugalTrader on Sep 6, 2007 filed under Building a House
My close friend Joe is also building a home, but he is a bit further ahead in the process than we are. He was gracious enough to take some time and post about his experiences with some of the costs involved.

As some of you readers may consider building in the future, this may help in planning a building budget. Note that the costs below are based upon building a home in Newfoundland, but it should give you an approximate cost for other areas in Canada.

$90-$95/sq ft of living space based on 2 story homes (ranch bungalows cost more/sq ft) – includes 10×10 patio, paved double driveway, and landscaping in front only.
$15,000 for single garage
$30,000 for double garage
Add the cost of land
Above price includes approximate allowances: $5000 for kitchen, $5000 for flooring, and $1000 for lighting.
As you can see, even though it costs a bundle to build a house, most builders only give you a skimpy allowance that will most likely NOT cover the expenses.

Also note that the prices given below are "contractor" prices which you will also mostly likely get if you are building through a reputable builder.

For kitchens, after getting many quotes, I found the general rule of thumb of $230 per linear foot of kitchen. My future kitchen is approximately 30 linear feet of kitchen cabinets/counter tops which would cost approximately $230 x 30 = ~ $7,000. Note that this estimate is based on a standard laminate counter top, not the fancy granite/marble stuff.

The floors, we're looking at getting mostly hardwood/ceramics and carpet in the bedrooms. The budget killer is if you want to get hardwood stairs which cost around $200/stair; extra if you have a landing, and super extra if you have a winding stair case. For us, we have around 12 steps + landing (thank goodness for no curve), quoted as $3000. For us, flooring worked out to be around $6.50/sq ft, so in total around $11,500 (1800 sq ft developed).

Onto the lighting, we're hoping to get some pot lights installed, but man, these little buggers are expensive! We were quoted approximately $100/pot light. We're going to get a few pot lights for the main floor, other than that, we're just getting cost effective (aka cheap), interior fixtures from the local hardware store. There's not doubt that we'll be exceeding the $1000 electrical/lighting allowance.

Something that most people neglect to consider are the exterior doors. Most builders give you a very low allowance for your front door, and you're bound to go over the given amount. We did anyways. Both our front/patio doors combined will cost us an extra $600