Those homes in Argentina are fantastic. When I sat down with two architects here in Seattle that did somewhat similar work, the price *started* at $460 a square foot.

As for 150. You will get a number of people claiming it's possible. Maybe. Im sceptical. But that would be everything else extra.

Good luck!

As most people here will say, a lot will depend on the neighbourhood and city you are planning to build in. Also the plan will dictate the cost of the house. Getting utilities etc to your build should be easy to find out and calculate before you start to build anything. Finishes also will govern the price.

Maybe it is a typo but you went from $150/sqft to $75/sqft for the 2000 sqft house when you mentioned $150,000 for the house

There was a post which someone was able to make their house for around $65 a sqft but that will be rare and long stretch with lots of sweat equity. But in my humble opinion, $150 should be doable in most of the USA except for metros and high cost neighbourhoods in any city.

Good luck for your upcoming build.

First, location is very important. For example, we probably could build the same square footage in our current low cost of living area for less half of what we are spending to build in a higher cost area. Here you would probably be fine at $150 a square foot. Volume builders are selling new modest houses here at around $100 a square foot (including land).

Second, all square feet are not equal. For example if we only count our finished square footage in the higher area, we are around 340 a square feet (not counting high land cost) and finishes will be relatively modest with a few splurges, but if we consider the large heated but unfinished walk out basement (with windows, exterior doors and stubbed in plumbing), we are down around 230 a square foot, and if you add in the heated garages it is even less. I expect that if the basements were finished it would add about another 50 per quare foot.

Unless you spend months trying to nail every cost down be prepared to be 10-15% over your allotted budget if you're building a new home from scratch. We are building here on West Coast at around $375/ sq ft(excluding land) and I thought we got a deal.

Where are you located? Here in Texas I am planning on building about a 3K sq ft house for $99-$107 per sq ft. That's been an estimate given to me by quite a few custom builders. The difference of price depends on finishes, septic, driveway length, etc.

Best place you can start to get that info is by talking to custom home builders, ask everyone you know for references of builders to call. Most will talk to you at no charge to give you at least some basic information

Lindsy, that's your estimate? Did you give them a house plan and your finishes? Because estimates are worth about the paper they are written on. Our estimate for building our house was considerably less than what the actual contract cost is. The difference was once because one was a rough estimate based on the builder's "typical" house vs the actual house plans.

I think Pensacola said it best.

As for the OP, are you hoping to build a house at $150 a square foot or half that? Also what do you consider basic finishes?

I will share my experience having had two fully custom homes designed and built. In both cases, the homes were built within budget and on schedule.

The posters who say it depends on where you are located are correct. We are in a relatively low cost area. The cost to build in other parts of the country, as reported by actual experiences here on GW, is frankly shocking. If you are in a relatively low cost area, that's a good start.

The biggest key to our successes was picking the right builder. In both cases we did not go with big firms. We chose men who ran their own companies and were personally involved in the builds. One was relatively new and one was very experienced, but the key is we trusted them and they personally cared about the final product. I feel there is nothing we could have done, as regular consumers not part of the industry, to have ensured success if we did not have a builder who cared and who hired subs who cared.

In both cases the builders were very honest with us, and accurate, on their estimates which were closely aligned with the accuracy of the final contract prices. We had no change orders and stayed within our allowances.

One key about picking the right builder, especially if you are interested in a budget-friendly build, is that you want quality quality quality in the basic structure of your home. You want a builder that understands that just because you don't want to spend money on the highest quality finishes or trendiest luxuries, doesn't mean you are "cheap". You want your resources to go towards quality in your foundation and structure. You want a builder that "gets" that and wants to do your build.

The answer to you $150/sq foot cost question is, it depends. I understand wanting to have an idea what a home will cost before you embark on your journey. But the square foot method has so many flaws. One is that it typically applies only to conditioned space and as mojomom points out, counting only conditioned square footage itself is flawed. I would add to her examples the cost of porches. Even within conditioned space, the cost for a square foot of kitchen or bath is completely different than the cost to build more living room space.

The cost to make a raw lot buildable is an area that is hard to determine in advance, especially without any specific lot in mind, and is where you certainly can have cost overruns and should have contingency. Since both of our builds involved well and septic I have no advice on tapping in to those basic utilities. In both of our builds, the electric companies were great and made it easy, they want new customers. In our first build (our current home) we had to pay extra to have underground lines through the woods. The build we did this year, the electric company put the lines underground for no charge.

We initially looked into prefab and modular. Like others we were surprised at the very high total cost to complete and quickly moved on to site-built.

What kind of house do you envision building? A custom house designed by an architect? A custom or semi-custom house from a builder's portfolio which s/he has built before? A tract house by a production building company? Something else? Where and what kind of land will you build on? An undeveloped lake-front property? Former farm property in the county? A left-over lot in a developed neighborhood in the city limits? Something else? As you can see, answering your question is a lot like trying to answer "how long is a piece of string?"

Hi All - Thank you for your responses. I greatly appreciate your kindness and insights! As we are new at this, and in the very early stages of learning this process, I do not have all the answers. We will surely be taking all of your suggestions / recommendations into consideration. And, I will surely post more details / questions in this comments thread soon. Thanks again!

I found the utilities set up cost rather shocking, personally. We paid $1000 for the water meter, $750 for the gas meter, and $650 for electrical meter/underground wire. We ran the water and gas lines ourselves. Septic cost about $5000. Of course that'll be different depending.....

Location matters hugely in this; there's a world of difference between building in Southern Indiana or downtown Chicago; so 'midwest' won't cut it. Also, is this suburban, city, or rural? Much different costs (and needs) on new land.

2) Given basic (budget friendly) finishings and nothing fancy, it is
possible to build a 2,000 sq ft home for $150,000, all in (not including
land cost)?

How much of the labor are you doing? I assume all?

As for SIPs; I was an SIP builder for years. You're not getting an SIP house on a budget like that.

Message me if you are interested in my experience with Deltec.