Building costs

What are prices up to now per Sq. Ft. to build a house or a shouse up in northern Mn. Anyone building recently got some idea? Not talking about the price of the ground or well and sewer just building costs.

All I know is the builder we used last year (moved in to our house in October) just told me 2 weeks ago that going forward and building in 2021 was a good move. He had several people that were going to wait for prices to go down. Lumber price is down BUT everything else is way up, insulation, windows, millwork, cabinets, carpet, labor, copper wire, etc. House bids have not gotten less.

Lumber prices were down. Started rising almost as soon as they bottomed out in the fall. We are in the early stages of planning a small cabin build near McGregor. Talked to a business acquaintance who is in the middle of sizeable “cabin” build near ours and is GC’ing it himself. He said if running the project yourself, expect 170-200/sf or more. Plus major headaches finding subs to do the work. Hiring a builder would push that to 250-300. He made a comment too that some of the labor pricing up there was higher than the metro. We’re still going through the process, but are in no hurry. We’ll see where it ends up.

Thankfully lumber futures peaked again last week and have been on a steady decline for 7 days. Many lumber yards are seeing home builds have started to slow down due to prices.

munchy wrote:

Thankfully lumber futures peaked again last week and have been on a steady decline for 7 days. Many lumber yards are seeing home builds have started to slow down due to prices.

I saw that to. Hopefully it stays that way. I hate to say it, but interest rates need to be increased before this eases.
Grizzly, one thing I didn’t point out is that I’m not real familiar with shouse costs, especially if you get into the pole type construction. Those should run less depending on the details.

It won’t be a pole shed it will be stick frame on a slab

Grizzly, on average most costs have risen 25 to 100% then you need to consider IF what you want is available when you need it. I realize to some this sounds a bit brutal or in your face, but asking how much per sqft is no different than me asking how much per pound did you pay for your car. Heck of a per pound difference in a Toyota Camry and a Maserati GranTurismo. Absolutely no different in building. You can seek out every short cut and minimal standards or you can build a quality box with nicer amenities….or you can go over the top with the best of everything. I currently have 3 plans and finish schedules in my desk that are all in the 3100 to 3600 sqft range and similar styles. I just quick divided the summary cost by sqft , 294/sqft, 363/sqft, and 481/sqft. If I, as a builder, gave you a per sqft cost without consideration to what and how I’m building , ild be blowing smoke up your arse.
Sorry to take this a bit off track but I get frustrated when I hear so many builders tossing out per sqft pricing and sucking buyers into something they don’t fully understand.

Randy, thanks for your rough guide on building costs. Went through this apx 8 years ago before we purchased the house we are in now. I had found some acreage in a location we liked and was in talks with a builder about some plans that I had modified. I also was looking to build in the 3000 Sq ft range, and it got real enlightening when I got real specific as to how I wanted it constructed and how it affected the cost. At that time it was apx $150,000 more expensive to build than buy as there were so many homes for sale and priced more reasonable, and we ended up buying instead of building because of this. We are considering possibly moving again, and have been looking at the possibility of building again, solely because of the fact there is virtually no quality homes available with some acreage in the area we are looking at. Everyone seems to be worried about the low interest rates going up a little bit, but in reality it’s supply and demand that is the real issue in these times.

Not my intent to hijack this but Ed, you had a glimpse into my life. I price out a couple houses every year and have the displeasure of seeing perspective clients bombshelled when reality hits them in the face like a sledgehammer. They hit the home shows and visit a few model homes. Spec sheets are so dam generic and they hear all the lowball sqft pricing. Then they come to me and we do a thorough plan and spec review. I send it out and get real pricing . Then I prepare their costs and options only to see the deer in the headlight look. The vast majority of my contracts are open book /cost plus. I’ll review all 500+ line items and make any changes they want. The funny side of my work is when they pull out a proposal from another builder. After I rattle through about 20 questions they realize they have no clue what another builder is or is not including

We are putting windows in to our 3800sq. ft build this weekend to give you some context for where we are at. Square footage like Randy said is extremely vague. I’ve done side work on 4000sq ft. homes that went up for probably 300k, and I’ve been in 2300 sq. ft houses that were $700k.
Bathrooms, Kitchens, and anything custom jack prices considerably (think fireplaces, built-ins, large master suites, outside slabs, etc). I’d consider our build to be done with energy efficiency and quality emphasized. Our finishes are quality, but not off the wall. Mrs. Bucky has her quartz, preferred windows, Diamond Kote LP siding, tiled showers, a few tray ceilings, etc. We don’t have $10k Cambria slabs lining our bathroom walls for the hell of it though either.

I have said before but will say it again, build a relationship with your local lumber yard that you plan on doing business through. The idea that box stores or bigger places are the cheapest places is a farce – especially in today’s world. It helps that I work on the side for the yard, but we shopped lumber prices far in advance. I knew at what price point I wanted them to buy our framing lumber well in-advance, and had them order it when prices tanked early fall. Larger places cannot do this with how volatile the markets are. They have thousands of units they need to sell at a price set by their higher-ups to meet margins. For reference, a 2×4 stud would average in the $3.50 range when we bought. Today they are ~$8. Many local yards in this area are running into storage issues. Lead times are such a crap shoot that they can end up with a house’s windows or doors sitting before the foundation is even done. I had our contractor, myself, and those ordering sit down building a shared calendar and opened up heated storage space in our buildings for items if they agreed to order when I told them to. Their labor is short staffed in the chaos today, so I have agreed to transport materials using their equipment for a break on costs as well. Timing is everything in today’s world and building a relationship allows you to manipulate the timing a bit more. Many people are only tied up in the “cost of lumber” but in reality lumber is the one commodity that has shown it has a ceiling before outpacing demand (somewhere in the $1000-1400 range per 1000 board ft. as it is traded). Labor costs still have a ways to go to meet demand as do many other manufactured goods like windows, doors, hardware, etc. For reference I just found out that if we ordered our windows today that we ordered early this fall, they would cost approximately $5200 more for the same thing.

My guess is that it will cost more to build a house tomorrow than it does today, and more next Fall and into 2023 than it does today. Some goods may stabilize at their price point, but they won’t come crashing down. The demand side of construction shows that labor rates have room to run upwards yet as well. A skilled tradesman in construction could charge 10% more on their overhead tomorrow for no reason and it wouldn’t stop a single call from coming in. There’s a big shortage of housing in this country that is well documented. I read yesterday that there are still more realtors in the United States than there are homes for sale. The same article stated we could triple the number of houses for sale in the country tomorrow, and it’d still at best be considered a balanced market.

I don’t have the knowledge Randy does, but if anyone has questions I’d gladly help or share my experiences. Feel free to shoot me a PM.

Another hilarious game is unquantifiable allowances. I get two bids on cabinets for a house “per plan” and they’re $34k and $37k – other builder has a $24,500 cabinet allowance. Guess who would have unexpectedly wrote a check for an extra 10k that wasn’t accounted for in their construction loan???

No doubt, building a new home, and having to make those 100’s of decisions, is something everyone should experience at least once.

We built new almost 5 years ago, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

HRG

always love hearing your input and perspective on the construction stuff Randy and Bucky

Thanks for the info guys. Will see what happens,got my contractor that finished my shop for me up here going to work me up a price through the local lumber yard in town here and see where we’re at. Will be interesting to see how it comes out

Randy, working with the contractor wasn’t a supprise for me as my dad was a builder, when alive, and I have always been a big time woodworker. Also after retiring, I used to help my friend for awhile for something to do, who is a contractor. Also during the last 15 years I have built 2 workshops, one house addition, and a 4 stall garage by myself. Also do my own electric. I realize my limitations though, and with getting older would never consider taking on something like a house build. In fact, just recently had a roof installed over our condo deck in Sturgeon bay and happily paid a contractor to do it. We had a great working relationship as he gave me his suggestions, and I had my ideas, and also knew what he was capable of doing. He knew what I expected, and when things came up, liked that I was capable of understanding what he described. As a contractor, it has to be really challenging working with clients that basically have no knowledge of building, other than the Sq footage they want, and Sq ft price. Keep up the good work, good contractors are tough to find.

Just completed a detached garage with finished office space above. Started in April of last year, right before lumber prices went effing crazy. The contractor had pre-bought all our lumber having anticipated (correctly) another apesh!t crazy building season. I did the plumbing, flooring and exterior/interior painting, so the cost estimate includes only materials for that work.

The finished cost per square foot was just over $300/sq foot. For a freaking garage/office! No plumbing other than outside faucets, only electric baseboard heat in the office. Well-finished office, but still my point being if that $$$ at all surprises you for a detached garage, you should NOT be even attempting to build.

Everything Randy posted above is gospel truth, but first and foremost cost per sq foot is complete BS as far as any way to compare anything. It’s a bleep show building right now and there is no possible way to stick to any kind of pre-made timeline or estimate. Basically you are writing a blank check with a blank timeline. Materials costs can go up 10% in a day. The most common stuff you need can suddenly go out of stock and disappear for weeks. You could easily hit a price runup that could have your job shut down for months unless you can afford an extra $10k or more to keep it going.

For example being I did all the painting to save money. Without warning, every drop of primer disappeared from the shelves. For about 2 weeks, there was just no damn primer in any quantity anywhere. Why? Who the hell knows why. The point is that anything and everything can hang you up and suddenly blow up your timeline and your budget and nobody including the contractor can see it coming.

We were about 8 sheets short of OSB and had to buy those 8 sheets back in May during the Mega Price Spike. $50 bucks a sheet was the cheapest we could find it. Almost $500 for 8 frickin sheets of OSB.

Don’t mean to scare you off, but like the saying goes, if you’re not scared, you’re crazy. People across the street are doing an extension with the same contractor I used. I told them don’t do it! Told them all the horror stories. They started anyway and they told me at Christmas that it was exactly the festival of pain that I told them it was going to be. They said they thought I was exaggerating until about a week after they started and suddenly they couldn’t get concrete forms and the excavating company had an excavator blow a gasket that left it sitting in their back yard for 2 weeks while they tried to get a part to fix it…

I thought residential construction prices were bad until I looked at the bid tally for a school we just bid.
Budget was $39 Million, Total for low bids came in at $61 Million.

tornadochaser wrote:

I thought residential construction prices were bad until I looked at the bid tally for a school we just bid.
Budget was $39 Million, Total for low bids came in at $61 Million.

No problem there the taxpayers can make up that difference.

Sorry if I’m kicking a dead horse in the sack. Thought this was interesting, though I’ve seen it a thousand times

I have a client I’m working with that is in a preliminary stage. Many things are decided, but we’re tweaking house size and some options. Layout #1 is 1990sqft 1st floor / second option is adding a 768sqft all seasons room with a huge fireplace. So primarily just volume space in the house. The kitchen layout and amenities (for now) is final and no changes between plans. I pulled a lot of the costs and applied some estimates to this kitchen. Even for my standards, this one is incredible. So for the sake of a comparison, the same $130,000(ish) kitchen divided by 1990 = $65.33 per foot if they take Season Room which is by far the cheapest volume space in the house, the kitchen cost is diminished to $47.14 per sqft Typically bathroom and kitchen sizes is homes under 2500sqft don’t vary much. So being the most expensive rooms and divided out among gross footage can paint a foggy picture