Building Costs Per Square Foot

No other project can be as time-consuming and complex as building a house from ground up. Planning out the whole project from choice of land, to designing and actual construction can be a daunting task. Even before you start with the actual project, the most important task is estimating the building costs. Without a general estimate of total construction costs, you cannot proceed with construction.

Right at the start, one fact must be cleared out. If you are looking for building costs in California or Texas, or any other state, I suggest that you visit a real estate portal, which has the prices listed. It's not possible to provide you with the exact construction costs, as all the prices are a function of time, location and type of home construction and other such details.

Calculation Formula

Let us talk about the math involved in the whole operation. The formula used for estimating the building costs is simple and straightforward enough to understand. Here it is:

Building Cost Per Square Foot = (Total Building Cost) / (Total Area of the House in Square Feet)

Factors Involved

There are various factors which come into play when estimating costs. First and foremost, there is the cost of leveling land and buying it which you need to take into consideration. Then there are the actual building material costs, labor costs, plumbing and furnishing costs. All these prices will vary according to the location at which you plan to build your house. To get an estimate, you need to sum up the price involved in all these factors. A lot depends on the design you opt for, when building the house. Innovative and out of the box designs demand complex architectural structures which raise the costs. Conventional box type designs will cost lesser in comparison.

How to Estimate Building Cost Per Square Foot

To get some actual building cost estimates, you have to make some phone calls and meet up with people engaged in the business like architects and engineers. Contact some of the local contractors, who can provide you with actual construction costs, along with labor costs and building material costs.

Another good source for building construction related data are your local real estate agents. Ask for prices of houses in the locality, where you plan to build your house and among them, check out the ones whose design matches your house. Divide the actual price of the house by the square footage of the house, to get the per square foot cost.

Get your house design ready and then estimate the costs involved in the various factors like labor, material costs, furnishing and land leveling. Create a stage wise cost breakdown of the whole construction project, to get an idea about the overall cost to build a house.

If you take all the variable affecting building costs into consideration, you will be able to get a more realistic estimate of construction costs. Local contractors and real estate agents are your best source of information when it comes to estimating the costs.