Building a new home is an exciting adventure, however, the most important thing one can do is calculate the costs of building accurately. Over-expenditure, poor project scheduling, or running dry of funds midway can be experienced if proper estimations have not been made. All this includes detailed analysis which is done with respect to cost-influencing factors - material, labor, and design, amongst others.
Cost estimation will help maintain the project well within its budget and also enable proper decisions regarding materials, labor, and designs. Many contractors use construction takeoff services to know the exact quantities of materials and labor hours. Then, they add the cost of materials by getting prices from local vendors and local labor rates.
The building of a house includes different interlinked expenses. Dividing them into comprehensible units enables you to draft an appropriate, detailed budget. Here's an overview of those aspects:
Location in urban areas usually increases labor and material costs and fees to be paid on permits since people are always keen on living there. In contrast, the cost is relatively lower in rural areas but incurs additional costs in transportation to ferry the materials and the laborers to and fro.
Land cost is determined by the location, size, and zoning requirements of the land. Generally, plots in urban areas are more expensive than those in suburban or rural areas. In addition to the base cost of the land, other costs involved while purchasing land include:
Site Preparation
Pre-construction site preparation involves tree removal, grading, and leveling of the soil. These costs can vary between $2,000 and $10,000 depending on the nature of the land.
Testing and Surveys of the Soil
This involves testing the soil to check its stability before the house is constructed. It costs between $500 and $2,000. This type of survey helps discover risks such as sinkholes or poor drainage in advance.
Your house design affects how your house looks and functions, but permits are required to get by the local regulations.
The price of your house is equal to the size of the house. The more square feet that must be built, the more materials and additional labor will be required when building it. Also, the more complex the design, the more it costs per square foot.
The quality of the material you choose will be quite determinant to the construction cost. From siding and roofing to flooring and countertops, this is where your choices are going to determine how much you'll pay for that house.
The last step of the construction process is an appealing and useful exterior. These appear curbside appealing; however, they also promote usability and value.
Utility hook-up ensures that the necessary services such as electricity, water, and sewage are provided to your property. This usually varies with location and infrastructure.
The cost of labor is variable depending on the task: whether it is general labor or special trade, and regional labor rates. Generally, electricians, plumbers, and air conditioning technicians tend to command higher rates than general laborers.
No matter how well you plan, the costs of construction sometimes surprise you along the way. A contingency budget is a safety net that financially allows you to fix problems without stopping the project. It usually suggests having 10-15% of the overall budget in such a fund.
Once you get accustomed to all the things that go into building a home, you will then need to choose which method will suit your needs for estimating expenses. There are several ways to estimate home construction expenses, and each has different degrees of accuracy and complexity.
The square footage method is perhaps one of the simplest cost estimation methods that most use during construction. This is derived by multiplying the total square footage of your house by the cost per square foot.
On some occasions, it will be more effective to estimate construction costs in terms of number of rooms in your home. This approach may favor small homes where rooms will be equally sized. You can estimate the construction cost for individual rooms such as bedrooms, bathrooms, and living spaces.
For a rough estimate in more depth, there is the itemized method of breaking down the construction cost into individual components such as framing, roofing, plumbing, and electrical. It is usually applied by contractors wherein each part of the project is itemized for more clarity.
Several software tools are available that homeowners and contractors can use to estimate construction costs. These tools rely on databases of material prices, labor rates, and other construction factors to provide a detailed cost estimate for homebuilding projects.
Estimation of costs for a new house calls for a very clear explanation of all the variables. The location, size, type of materials, and labor will sink a great hole in your budget. Surprise costs are possible at any time. Now break each component into construction, material, labor, permit, site preparation, and contingency so that you have all the components to put together your complete budget.
Land cost and landscape plus utilities should also not be forgotten. In the following manner, by thorough planning and research work, the better would you be able to estimate more accurate costs of your new house construction so that you won't hit a financial pit.
