Congrats on your property purchase. I would ask two of your builder/friends to look over your plans. They should be able to give you a close "guestimate" based on it and your desired finish level. You don't say whether yours is a custom home with a lot of bells and whistles and/or upgrades (above a normal builder's spec house) so it's hard to pin point a dollar figure. Also, not knowing your location - some places are much higher than others for the same house.

Our builder guestimated approx. $125 psf. and that's pretty close to what we spent, but a plain jane house can be built for less. There are a lot of variables.

I purchased all of our plumbing and electrical fixtures online. Just know your garage will fill up faster than you think!

Gosh, Allison! I would have thought your cost psf would have been double that. Your house has always been one of my favorites. :o)

Aggie...we just moved in 3 weeks ago. Our original intention was to go with a GC, but we ended up doing it ourselves. We bought our property on 10-31-06. We went to tons of open houses and toured new homes. We got familiar with the builders of the homes that we felt were doing quality work and spoke to them about the costs to build a home like XXX for us. That gave us a pretty good idea of what the $$$ would be.

Then we started looking for plans. I couldn't find anything that was exactly what we wanted, so I did my own on the computer. When we were happy with the design I took it to a residential designer who drew up the plans for me.

I researched and picked out every single faucet, light fixture, door knob, drawer pull and any other thing that I could think of...right down to the lumber & housewrap. LOL I made lists of those things on Excel spreadsheets (catagorized for each room). Then I looked online for better prices. I had nearly all of the items purchased before we broke ground on 3-28-08. Pre-purchasing worked well for us and saved us a TON of $$$.

We enjoyed researching everything so much that DH & I decided to GC the build ourselves. I can't begin to tell you how many subs we interviewed. We were here every day that the house was being built and I can honestly say that every single person who has worked on our house has treated it like their own.

If you're planning to use a GC, I'd nail that down first. I've heard from others that some GCs like to use certain plumbing or lighting places and won't use owner provided materials because of warranty/liability issues.

Our house doesn't have all the bells & whistles, but it is exactly what we wanted. BTW...the GCs that we spoke to estimated it would be $95-110 PSF to build a house like this, but we came in at just under $64 PSF. The house is 4240 HSF with 6380 SF under roof.

Please pardon all the yard decor. LOL This was taken move-in day. :o)

Thanks! I went to double check the numbers - ours was closer to $140 psf.....which is closer to 125 than 250. lol

Your house is very pretty, even with the tanks out front.

You mean you don't have tanks and pallets in your front yard? LOL

Persnickity: would you come and GC our home?!? That's one amazing piece of property! I, too, am worried about "owner provided materials" as we've already had one builder tell us he wouldn't warranty them (he's currently off our list!). However, I have the spiritual gift of bargain hunting (so my husband tells me), and I'd really like to look for bargains where and when I can.

Unfotunately, I don't think my husband and I can GC our own home....this is our first building experience, plus I have three small children. I don't know how we'd do it without abandoning our very lives!

Thank you both for your help....I think our next step is to get our plans drawn up by a residential designer and then bid out the plans to a few builders in town....does that sound right?

Aggie, where are we building? LOL I would build another one again in a heartbeat. We loved doing it so much!

This was our first build and we have 3 little guys too. I'm a house mommy even though they've all been in school for years. I just never quite made it back to work. LOL

FWIW...I still managed to pull off room mom and never missed a single baseball game during the build. Family ALWAYS comes first. :o)

Aggie, congratulations on your land purchase. My husband and I had our house on the market while I spent hundreds of hours looking at house plans and touring new homes. The prices of new homes were so high for what you were getting and we wanted a home on acreage. We just could never find what we wanted. Then one day some friends told us about a really good deal on 7 acres of land near them. We went to see it and fell in love with the property. We purchased it in March, sold our house in August and we now have a basement. We are building the Frank Betz Summerlake plan with several changes. We loved almost everything about it but added a larger kitchen,dining and breakfast area.
My husband and I have never built a home but we know enough close friends who have as well as enough close friends in the areas needed to build. So far everything is running very smoothly although the anxiety gets me some times. We are planning on building the same house we saw for $529,000 on 2 acres. Our price should come in around $300,000. All of the building materials have come down in price and all of the great information you get from this site really helps out. I am going to try and post the building of our home but I would highly recommend doing alot of your own homework and you can save alot of money.
I too have 2 children, I am room mom for both, and team mom for both. We feel if you make the entire home building project a family event then everything will be a great learning experience as well as adventure. We are really enjoying it so far.
Time goes by so fast that you just have to go for your dreams. But definitely only the affordable ones.

persnicketydesign~~ WOW....what a house for under $64 PSF!
Do you have a break-down of the items you used?.....i.e. amount for windows (kind), doors, trim, siding, cement, flooring, tile, carpenters, plumbing, fixtures, appliances, electrical, etc?.....Just thought you might have this done already, if you wouldn't mind sharing it.
What you did was amazing!!! Maybe you should go in the business~~~~~

LOL I think I need a little more practice, phoggie. Actually, I'll be doing my BIL's house (if he can ever find some property).

There was a thread a while back about building for under $65 PSF and I put a bunch of the info in there. Here's a link.

I've been emailing copies of a couple of our Excel spreadsheets through the "How Are You Tracking Costs" thread. I'd be happy to email them to you if can post your email addy. For some reason, our version of Excel won't let me post them. *hmph*

I'll try to post some new pics of the house tomorrow and give the details. I don't want to hijack aggie's thread. :o)

Here is a link that might be useful: $65 SF to Build

Persnickety, I would love a copy of that spreadsheet as well! Our build is being postponed due to the housing market here (why sell our current house for less when we don't HAVE to move immediately?), but we're still getting all are ducks in a row for a build next year, hopefully! whitney@nwdls.com