That is how it should work to get the most accurate quote. Other builders might just give you allowances for those categories, but they tend to be based on the minimal quantity and quality of an item.

You can be happy with a $40 faucet from home depot or want an $800 faucet from Kallista. How can a builder give you an accurate quote without knowing which faucet quality you are expecting to see in the house?

The builder is asking so that he/she can give you an accurate price - though rather than color of paint, brand and sheen. You should have as much detail in the floor plan as possible. I had an architect handle all of that and I think he used "grades" and "specs" for everything so that all bidders were bidding on the same construction. Then the builders offered allowances on items like cabinets, flooring, lighting, appliances, hardware. These allowances differ among builders and the issue for you is that the allowances may not (likely won't) be enough to buy the finishes that you want and therefore you won't know how much the house will eventually cost. It's a lot to do and figure out, so I wish you well.

The best quotes have no allowances so each and every item has to be specified. Builders, if they do use allowances, typically put in a very low allowance for the item so then you need to adjust those figures with updated specs in order to compare bids between builders accurately or even to evaluate the bid from one builder. Remember, an allowance is a place where the builder can, and does, increase his price to you during construction when the actual item is selected.

Yes, I understand that. But I have told them in general about what I want to spend for finishes and given general price ranges, but I didn't think I would have to go to travel all around town to all their suppliers to pick detailed items, such as color of paint. I mean, I did say SW or BM paint, not valspar, so that should give them some idea.

Didn't you get written detailed specifications from your architect like sonni1 mentioned? That's part of his services that you paid for when he designed the plan for you.

Denita - We bought an online plan.

Thanks. I read through that last week.

The problem seems to be that you don't want to do the work it takes to get an accurate quote?

The builder sounds great.

At some point, you will need to make all these choices, unless you would be happy with a tract house whose "design center" has about 3 choices for each item, from which one MUST choose.

Yes, building a custom home IS a lot of work - it's why most people go with a tract house with minimal customization options. Heck, just re-doing an 11x 15 ft kitchen involved a lot of work, and the lighting and floor were already there!

I have the actual floor plans and I know what finishes I want, such as impact resistant windows,

So do you want PGT impact windows or CWS? Or some other off brand?

wood floors,

So are we talking about Lumber Liquidators $2 a square foot price or $20 a square foot. Are we talking hardwood or engineered hardwood.

real wood shaker cabinets, shaker doors, simple trim, etc.

Are you doing Aristocraft which is builder basic cabinets or Crystal custom cabinets? They both have "real" wood shaker cabinets but the difference in price between each is about $600-$1000 per cabinet.

Are you doing formica? Level 1 granite or exotic quartzite?

As chispa asked, are you doing delta basic faucets or Kallistas? One can be had for about $200 a piece and the other is about $1500. There's also a lot in between.

Do I need anything more? Can't they give me a good estimate on that information?

They can give you an estimate but it won't be a good one. As others have mentioned they can give you allowances, but those are almost always too low.

I have no idea at this point in time what color paint I want, or what kind of light fixtures I want.

The more you can have figured out in advance, the better for you.

Is this how it's suppose to work? I feel like I'm wasting time at this point and I'm about to go talk to other builders, but want to know what is expected of me before I get into this again.

Your builder sounds like a pro. So you'll go to other builders and they'll make "educated" guesses on what you want. However most likely it will be lower than the actual build. Allowances are the bane of new builds. They are almost always too low.

I mean, I did say SW or BM paint, not valspar, so that should give them some idea.

Again, no you didn't give him any idea. Do you want BM Advance paint, Regal or Aura? Or should he use the builder's grade paint? Same thing with SW. And the truth is if you want BM over SW, the price difference can be a $20 per gallon difference.

If you're unsure of what to do, maybe you should consider hiring an interior designer to help you choose everything?

It sounds like your builder is a good one and is doing the right thing

How important is it to you to have an accurate and complete price? For everything?

Or would you like a simple estimate?

I can give you a simple estimate...(holding index finger in the wind)...your house will cost somewhere between $125/SF and $500/SF. Give me $50,000 down and I'll bring a contract over for you to sign tomorrow...

Good luck on your project!

PS: "Quotes" don't mean a thing. The only thing which means anything is the amount listed on the contract for construction.

PPS: There's three categories of contract for construction: 1) Fixed price; 2) Time and Materials; and 3) Cost Plus. Hint: don't use number 2, unless you have very deep pockets and a great sense of humor...

Do you think that it may be advantageous to hire an architect to look over the plan you bought? The architect can look for potential problems or inefficiencies with the plan, write out the specs for the builders and offer other feedback regarding the plan and the site on which you want to build it on. I think if you found an architect with good credentials, whose work you like and enjoy dealing with, it would be money well spent and possibly the best money spent on this project.

I assume this is a custom builder, not a tract builder?

Frankly, several tiles and one countertop got discontinued before we got to use them. No storage for them early on, anyway.

Lights and major appliances .. I ordered and paid for those directly myself when I saw the space theY'd be in. He was only responsible for installation. Of course he knew the range would be induction, say, and not gas, at the outset. I bought faucets and kitchen / bath hardware directly.

I let him purchase the tub and toilets ... I specified toilet height. He actually purchased the countertops - Corian for the baths is pretty much all the same price, but quartz varies a lot. I picked out the kitchen quartz fairly early, but after the contract, knowing this was something we,d have to adjust. Even so, one choice got discontinued and I had to punt. We worked it out without any cost overrun of note.

Just get it in the contract that owner is responsible for selecting/ ordering x, y, or z on your own dime. You'll still have to specify things - if you dont know the exact model of fridge, will you be running water to it or not? Due to window vagaries, you may need to pick those out in advance. Where will pliumbing, electric need to run? What power, wattage? But a lot of the cosmetic stuff can wait.

(I was even able to order a few things on his contractor's discount, but dont plan on that.)

If you are building using a tract builder, you probably can't do what I did.

OP is no where close to being able to go to contract without knowing what his build will cost. It is a good idea to specify the items the consumer will buy when it is time for a contract. In fact, it would be a good idea for the OP to have his own real estate attorney prepare the contract as opposed to using builders standard form, if possible. But this step is much further down the road after OP has had his estimates provided by one, two or more builders when the OP has nailed down his specifications.

Just plan on a 50%-100% cost over run in advance and it’ll be alright. If your budget can’t absorb the difference between a 600K house and a 1.2M house, then you either have to run all over town to do the work yourself to narrow that down.

Or pay someone who does that for a living. Like an architect. Who designs homes for a living. And isn’t a stenographer taking dictation from some poor 3rd party mumbler. You’ll get a better result, and probably be cheaper in the end. Because the hone will be designed for your specific property and specific codes. And you won’t have to pay someone to completely redesign a urban in-line skinny plan built for a city to a more commodious sloping lot that has hurricane engineering requirements.

Hire an Interior Designer if you are set on going down this path. An architect is not going to develop specifications for a job he didn't design. An ID can help you with furniture placement and purchases after the build as well.

Be prepared to pay for it. Or be prepared to do it.

There is only sorrow and over budget builds that results from allowances from a builder. Low guesses always sound so good on the front end. But when everything comes in double the allowance, it's not so good.

OK...the OP wrote, "...What exact info do I need to in order to get a builder's quote?..."

The answer is you don't have to do anything. Builder's give quotes all the time. Quotes aren't worth the paper they're not written on...How many threads have we seen here from posters who are upset that their actual construction costs don't match the "quote" before construction started? Allowances, change orders and consumers changing their minds during construction are some of the reasons...

The only cost figure which means anything at all is the figure on the written contract for construction, signed by both the owner and the builder. And if the contract is a Time and Materials Contract, those numbers only spell out that costs will be based on whatever labor and whatever materials and whatever overhead and profit the builder charges.

Do your due diligence. Get complete construction documents--detailed construction drawings and full specifications for everything! Eliminate allowances, and don't change your mind once construction begins.

That's all you have to do. Simple?

Whew... tough crowd. While I would love completed decisions going in, its rare. You should be able to find a builder who will price your project in general terms based on specifications they're familiar with use commonly. Most of my clients have already seen my work and want pricing based on finishes and specs similar to what they've seen. It greatly simplifies the pricing process and is very easy for the client to understand. You get real allowances based on a home that's previously built.

We aren't tough ... we're just realists!

"...You should be able to find a builder who will price your project in general terms..."

I think I see the problem...

When you buy a car, or anything else...do you want it priced in general terms?

We were able to get a generic quote for for our new build based on a house of similar size up the street the builder built. This was our starting point. We then worked with a designer to make our custom plans for the exterior and budget was tweaked again. Then we did all the interior design and it was tweaked once more. In the end the difference was less than 5% overall from the starting generic budget. The one we have now is based on actual quotes and specific items etc.

Alison, is the house built or are these the quotes you are comparing?

not only is building a home expensive, it is also time consuming. are you sure you don't want a tract house?

Denita we are currently framing. Of course we have a contingency but there is no reason that the items we selected should great fluctuate in price. We have dealt with unknown issues already form the excavation site but that's how it goes. The whole point in choosing all the interior stuff before we started building was for there to be fewer changes and make sure we knew costs going in. That said we are financially prepared if there are overages. But we get told how much stuff will cost before it is bought/ordered and ok it. So far for windows/doors/plumbing fixtures we have been on target with a few minor tweaks or swapping one thing for another.

Alison are you the OP...or are you just arriving on the scene and interjecting your own situation and experience here?

Starting to get confusing in this thread...

Not original poster. Am highlighting that it is in fact possible to get decent information early on. My point in posting was to show that a reasonable quote is achievable at varying stages and can be quite accurate. Simply by using previous experiences and having a discussion with the homeowner on finishes reasonable budgets can be drawn up. Not sure why that’s confusing or interjecting

not only is building a home expensive, it is also time consuming

Boy is that an understatement!

Our builder wanted us running all over as well, but I could also opt to say “go with what you generally do for paint” or “price it as mid-level quartz”, etc so I certainly didn’t have to decide everything in advance. Certainly not paint colors.

It was very helpful though to get a (small) idea of how many decisions we’d need to make in the process! And, we did need to decide faucets, toilets, etc. at some point so it was fine to start thinking about those early. We changed our minds on some things since then, but were very aware of the difference in cost of the new choice because we had a starting point. Many things came up with detailed questioning from the builder that I’m glad were in our budget from the start (porch ceiling, solatubes, attic storage trusses).

If you are going to pursue a custom build, I don’t think the time spent early on selections will be time wasted, and it could save lots of budget angst down the road.

The verbiage here is a bit confusing and I just wanted to try to add a bit of clarity. I am not saying anyone is wrong in practice, but in this case words can matter.

An estimate is a guess based on experience, estimates may be good or bad, detailed or vague, right or wrong, etc

A quote or bid is firm offer to do business based on the given criteria, a quote is one half of a contract and once accepted becomes a fully executed contract.

A contract signed by both parties establishes the terms and conditions of the quote.

Any, or even all, of these might be omitted in building a home, but a quote will establish a legally binding price for the specified work.

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A LOT of contractors have gotten burned by confusing a quote and an estimate. Additionally, quotes are harder to disclaim than contractors realize, there have been many contractors who have lost cases based on quotes for work they quoted remotely.

The more specific the information you give to the contractor the more exact his quote will be, because while he must honor his quote he does have a lot of leeway absent exact specifications to quote something very different than you want. For example, he might quote a level 3 drywall finish when you want a level 5.

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Having said all of the above, it means absolutely nothing. All you need to do to legally enforce any of these things is add a stupid amount of money and time. In the end, a good contractor who you vetted and trust, will help you develop the information you need to give him, so that he can give you the information you need.

You should specify everything possible, because garbage in = garbage out, and if you plan on letting a contractor substitute his vision for yours, just offer to buy his current house and save yourself the hassle of building.