New Home Construction Question

[LJSquishy]

For those who have built a new home not all rolled into a housing development where the builder has a set price for the home including the land, can you explain to me a bit how it works and extra costs involved?

We found a builder who offers standard & semi-custom homes with floor plans we love. The price of a complete build varies anywhere from $109k - $145k for the plans we're interested in (with standard features, upgrades extra of course).

So, if we find land separately for say, $50k that says "sewer, gas line, etc hookups available at property line"...what sorts of extra costs do we need to know about in terms of what it takes to prepare a site to build on? If the property is already relatively flat (we'll say the land is .25 acres) are we talking about $10,000+ to grade it, then $10,000+ to actually hook up to utilities, $20,000+ for other things like laying the sewer line, other misc things?? I don't want to include things like landscaping (sprinkler system, lawn, edging, etc) but obviously a concrete driveway to the garage would be needed which is what, $10,000?

Is there a rough rule about a magical number to add to the price of the land to have a ballpark figure of an "all said and done" cost for the house/land? We are still 6 months to a year away from being able to even start a build (or one year if buying an existing house) so we aren't serious enough to really inquire with a professional yet. We've been looking at homes in our price range from 1950 to brand new and just haven't found a floor plan we like. Our budget is ideally $215k but would be comfortable going up to $240k if needed. I've seen land from $28k - $65k, some mention sewer/gas at property line, and others don't mention anything.

 

[tina.tina]

I suggest you contact a realtor about some of the property you might be interested in. They could probably give you some direction. It seems to me that costs and required prep can vary greatly over geographical areas.

 

[OrangeBirdGirl]

I'd suggest calling your local utilities for the rates for connection. I'm sure it varies greatly.

At work, I recently had a communications tower built. At the base of the tower, we have a shelter. The utilities were at the lot line/street. For the gas, the gas company does not charge for bringing 100' of line onto the property and they charge $6.06/foot past the 100'. For electric, the electric company charged approx. $15K to get service onto the property without frost and $20K if there was frost. This was for buried electrical going onto the site (which is what you'd probably do for a new construction).

Again concrete cost will vary greatly too. Our house is 6 years old. Our lot is a 1/3 of an acre so roughly same size as yours so probably same driveway length? Our driveway is three stalls wide to the street (some just do three at the top and taper off to two at the road). Our cost was $4500 but again that was awhile ago. Oh our concrete price also included the walk from the driveway to the front door and a concrete slab off the patio (maybe 15x15?) and a small concrete slab off the back of the garage service door. Our yard was only about $2500 to put in, they graded (but didn't need to bring in any dirt). That did not include any landscaping. We did that on our own over the years. LOL we are still in the process of adding stuff.

 

[ericstac]

This is very region specific.. a typical community driveway around here might run about $5k but up there you might be dealing with higher labor and material costs and I know freeze lines and junk could play a roll in how the drive is designed..

dirt work should be fair cheap. I'm assuming the builders 'complete' house includes the pad so your only talking about needing to grade out around the house which should only be a couple grand if its already pretty flat.. again that's based on around my parts.

I would think the builder you chose should easily be able to give you ballpark numbers on what it should cost in additional costs if he has the experience in that area.

 

[tlseege]

It varies greatly. We're currently building a house and the costs are ridiculous... but our lot needed a lot of "improvements" before it was buildable.

Here is what I can tell you. Again, this is TOTALLY variable, but at least it'll give you an idea.

Building Permit - $2500
Surveys - $1600
Stripping the lot of soil and moving it to the backyard (we moved a LOT of soil) $6000
Installing Culvert for the driveway - $2700
The actual culvert - $750
Moving more dirt - $1900
Backfill for the foundation - $12,000 (again, we had to move a LOT of dirt and our basement was actually above ground... that's how much dirt we had to backfill. So this one is probably not nearly as high for a normal home build)
Gravel for the foundation - $9400... again, backfill.
Erosion Control - $200
Drain Pipe - $200
Gravel for the driveway - $800
Well/pump/hookup/wiring - $7700 (if you have city water then this doesn't apply)
Septic hookup and wiring - $10000 (if you have city sewer then this doesn't apply)

Your builder might have some of those costs included with the home package, so you should double check with them.

 

[BCV2003]

The cost for excavating can vary greatly also. We built a home with a builder where the cost of the lot was built in but we did find out that they typically pay around $2,000 for excavation for the basement/footers but ours was $8-10,000 because under 1 1/2 feet of soil was solid rock so there were increased costs for that.

We added a 65 ft sidewalk down the side of our house along with a decent size patio and steps from the sliders to the patio and the total cost for that work was about $12,000.

 

[PlutoPony]

Won't the builder include those costs - utilities run, driveway, etc. - in his quote? IF he's going to be the general contractor for the house, he'd be overseeing those tasks. Plus I'd assume that delivered product in your contract with him would be a house with an occupancy permit.... so the utilities and driveway would have to be in place to get that permit.

IF you're trying to put the cost pieces together on your own, understanding what's required in getting an occupancy permit would be crucial to your figures. For instance around here some level of landscaping is required for the permit. Think seeding the lawn, proper grading and soil around the foundation, and some amount of plantings around the foundation are required just as an example.

 

[barkley]

For those who have built a new home not all rolled into a housing development where the builder has a set price for the home including the land, can you explain to me a bit how it works and extra costs involved?

We found a builder who offers standard & semi-custom homes with floor plans we love. The price of a complete build varies anywhere from $109k - $145k for the plans we're interested in (with standard features, upgrades extra of course).

So, if we find land separately for say, $50k that says "sewer, gas line, etc hookups available at property line"...what sorts of extra costs do we need to know about in terms of what it takes to prepare a site to build on? If the property is already relatively flat (we'll say the land is .25 acres) are we talking about $10,000+ to grade it, then $10,000+ to actually hook up to utilities, $20,000+ for other things like laying the sewer line, other misc things?? I don't want to include things like landscaping (sprinkler system, lawn, edging, etc) but obviously a concrete driveway to the garage would be needed which is what, $10,000?

Is there a rough rule about a magical number to add to the price of the land to have a ballpark figure of an "all said and done" cost for the house/land? We are still 6 months to a year away from being able to even start a build (or one year if buying an existing house) so we aren't serious enough to really inquire with a professional yet. We've been looking at homes in our price range from 1950 to brand new and just haven't found a floor plan we like. Our budget is ideally $215k but would be comfortable going up to $240k if needed. I've seen land from $28k - $65k, some mention sewer/gas at property line, and others don't mention anything.

I don't know if you're looking in the city limits of Spokane or anywhere within the county, but as a heads up-be VERY careful to research YOURSELF what is meant by 'sewer hookups at the property line'. depending on the area within the county there can be insanely deep and extensive layers of rock that can cost a fortune to get broken up (if it even can be) to get the lines to a home, and even then the 'sewer' they may be talking about is a community flow field on someone else's property so you have to coordinate with them the cost for upkeep on the systems (or with an acre or more on your own property but then that eats up a chunk of your property you can't do anything with). another thing to look at is how many bedrooms an individual property is allocated for on their sewer system-there are some 10 acre lots near us that are seemingly a bargain until you realize they can never build more than a 1 bedroom home on them (and if you have kids-call the district where any property owner/realtor claims your kids can attend or "choose" to if you purchase-some of the districts that used to let kids attend if they lived near by but out of district no longer do, and some districts have redrawn their lines).

as far as costs-we purchased a new spec home but have done significant upgrades, so I will say-

budget on the high end for anything that entails bringing bulk materials in (soil, gravel, concrete) b/c the fuel costs can add tremendously (and w/some things like concrete which can only be poured certain times of the year around here which coincides with higher summer fuel costs it ends up a bit spendy). we put in a concrete pad (for in front of a 3 car garage) a couple of years ago for around $7500 (but the area was already graded and leveled)-I highly recommend having someone do it in a way that provides drainage (ours drains to a trap next to the driveway that spills through an underground tube into a garden) so you don't get ice dams every winter.

think seriously about what you REALY want short AND long term-it can be much less expensive to at least get the plumbing/electrical/gas lines set up during initial construction for future projects. if you think you might want a whole home generator down the line-get the cement pad poured outside your garage during construction, and upgrade the gas lines (if you use propane) to support it when the time comes (a PHENOMINAL thing to have around here in the winter).

if you are looking at a year and a half from now keep in mind that prices you get a good idea of will probably increase, and you will probably have to wait to see how things need to time out b/c allot of concrete places around here won't begin to pour a foundation until mid to late may (they want to be sure the ground is thawed and we are past freezing temperatures) so you will want to time out all your surveys and permit applications so that ideally you can get the home done before the freezing happens again.

 

[1buckeyegirl]

Your builder should be able to give you a lot improvement estimate. Of course this will change depending on the lot you purchase but it will give you an idea of what to expect. We were going to purchase .75 of an acre in a village with water and sewer. The water/sewer hook up was $10,000.00 alone plus the electric lines, permits, gas lines, gravel, concrete drive way. It ended up being around $35,000 for the lot improvements.

 

[pigletto]

Our cost was $4500 but again that was awhile ago. Oh our concrete price also included the walk from the driveway to the front door and a concrete slab off the patio (maybe 15x15?) and a small concrete slab off the back of the garage service door

.

I just paid $9000 for concrete curbs, concrete to the front porch, concrete side walkway to the backyard and ashphalt double width and length driveway. And that was the mid priced estimate I got. To do it all in concrete would have been closer to $20,000.

 

[barkley]

.

I just paid $9000 for concrete curbs, concrete to the front porch, concrete side walkway to the backyard and ashphalt double width and length driveway. And that was the mid priced estimate I got. To do it all in concrete would have been closer to $20,000.

concrete is not cheap stuff-and if you've got snow to deal with you better figure in the cost of decent snow blower b/c if you use that deicing stuff it will start eating away at the concrete such that you'll be looking to replace it sooner vs. later in the country we have lots of neighbors who just opt for gravel driveways and no pad in front of their garages for this very reason.

 

[pigletto]

concrete is not cheap stuff-and if you've got snow to deal with you better figure in the cost of decent snow blower b/c if you use that deicing stuff it will start eating away at the concrete such that you'll be looking to replace it sooner vs. later in the country we have lots of neighbors who just opt for gravel driveways and no pad in front of their garages for this very reason.

Yep. I'm looking for a snowblower for Christmas. We do know to use the alternatives to rock salt and we had the concrete sealed. Someone even suggested kitty litter as a safe alternative to give traction. I learned the hard way. Our front porch is breaking down because of salt and we have to tile it with slate to spruce it up and prevent any further corrosion.

 

[OrangeBirdGirl]

Yep. I'm looking for a snowblower for Christmas. We do know to use the alternatives to rock salt and we had the concrete sealed. Someone even suggested kitty litter as a safe alternative to give traction. I learned the hard way. Our front porch is breaking down because of salt and we have to tile it with slate to spruce it up and prevent any further corrosion.

We have used the salt that we'd use for our water softener. Definitely not the most cost effective way to do it, but it saves the concrete.

 

[LJSquishy]

Thanks for all of the info so far!

We aren't ready to contact any professionals yet; I was mostly curious if building is even a possibility for us with our budget. I guess it would be if we can buy a lot with all improvements done (including permits, driveway, etc) for under $100,000.

I don't even know if we'd be able to fit the floor plans we like onto a lot in our budget, either! We would prefer a rancher but the size seems awfully big for the ones we're looking at...most are about 70-90 feet long and 40-60 feet deep.

 

[OhMari]

It varies greatly. We're currently building a house and the costs are ridiculous... but our lot needed a lot of "improvements" before it was buildable.

Here is what I can tell you. Again, this is TOTALLY variable, but at least it'll give you an idea.

Building Permit - $2500
Surveys - $1600
Stripping the lot of soil and moving it to the backyard (we moved a LOT of soil) $6000
Installing Culvert for the driveway - $2700
The actual culvert - $750
Moving more dirt - $1900
Backfill for the foundation - $12,000 (again, we had to move a LOT of dirt and our basement was actually above ground... that's how much dirt we had to backfill. So this one is probably not nearly as high for a normal home build)
Gravel for the foundation - $9400... again, backfill.
Erosion Control - $200
Drain Pipe - $200
Gravel for the driveway - $800
Well/pump/hookup/wiring - $7700 (if you have city water then this doesn't apply)
Septic hookup and wiring - $10000 (if you have city sewer then this doesn't apply)

Your builder might have some of those costs included with the home package, so you should double check with them.

We ran into the almost exact same things as you did, except we were able to hook up to a township sewer system for $2600. It will cost us approximately $50 a month as long as we own the home.

If we had to build again, I would never ever want too. We are just into framing now. The price of the products is staggering. If you want very low end products for your home, it is doable, but plan on replacing items within 5 years, because that is the life expectancy. We were budgeted for carpeting in the $2.00 a square range. We found out the carpeting was made out of plastic water bottles-the carpeting was called polyester. They had chemicals that treated the polyester for stains and smell. We eliminated some tiling in the kitchen-the back splash, just to upgrade to nylon carpeting. We figured we could do the back splash as a DIY project.

The kitchen cupboards were quoted very high, since we had some built-ins that were suppose to go in the house. We found out the kitchen cupboards that were quoted for us, were all laminate. We took out a bookcase and a built in bench on our steps landing and got real maple wood kitchen cupboards.

We thought going with a builder/contractor/designer was the way to go with building a new home. We should of known better. We have been doing our own home remodeling for 25 years. We live in a 125 year old house and we have always been doing our own work. Why we thought we wanted to hand over everything, was a huge mistake.

Another big shocker-the labor is almost more than the product. We ended up finding our own carpet layer, he went and put his discount on our carpet and we are saving a whole lot more too now. Thank God, we never signed the contract for the carpet yet. The money we saved on carpet went to all the stone and dirt that had to be brought in.

We figured we are probably going to be over budget of $10,000, which isn't too bad. If we would of never built, we probably could be in a home $100,000 cheaper and did some remodeling worth $40,000. We both agree we are okay with building, but we see ourselves selling in 5-10 years and by then hopefully we will get what it cost to build.

 

[Darcy03231]

Whatever you plan to spend add 20% for cost overruns and if you stay within that 20% count yourself lucky.

DH is in the construction business and even with what he knows we've always had overruns on any construction project we've done.

 

[puffkin]

My parents built a custom built home almost 10 years ago and the site prep was STAGGERING. Almost a 1/3 of the cost of the home til it was all said and done. Their lot/driveway was fairly large, and they expected a lot of it, but even still they went over budget on that part by at least $30K.

They had their own house plans drawn up and then had the contractors bid out on the work. The one they went with had finishing packages then for the interior work that they chose from (ie platinum was all granite/tile/hardwood/custom cabinetry, gold was corian/tile/mix hardwood/carpet, etc). The contractors all quoted out the site prep with their bids as well. So my parents knew up front most of what would be involved.

We just got done finishing off our basement this past winter. Definitely figure going about 20% over budget. We also went over about that much and we were being super careful with every choice we made. And it is also good advice to try and do as much of the invisible stuff as you can with building. Wiring, plumbing rough ins, concrete work, etc that you may want/need in the future. It is soooo much cheaper in the long run. It is easy to change out flooring or countertops. Not so easy to cut egress windows into your foundation!

 

[seasheller]

I would never have a house built again because of all of the hidden costs. When we were getting ready to sign the contract, I asked the builder to itemize more of the costs. He said, "Why? This is the total price and this is what it will cost." As the work progressed, more and more costs kept getting added on. Once you are in the middle of the project there's no turning back - unless you want to start suing and holding up the project. It was a nightmare - and this was supposed to be a reputable builder in the area. Proceed with caution - and good luck!