How large of a contingency fund are you planning?

Poorly designed houses are harder to sell than well designed houses. Factor that into your equation. Often one gets what they pay for.

Poorly designed houses are harder to sell than well designed houses.

I see this quite often looking at real estate listings. I'm looking at location, specs and even exterior. Then you get into the inside and quickly realize why its not selling in a hot market due to the layout and design.

Scott,

I'm a bit surprised you're asking this question when you work as a project manager at a remodeling company. Wouldn't you have the best info from your local contacts?

If you already have an engineer and architect at your company, why not have them design something to fit your needs?!

"Penny wise, pound foolish"

That's the term I was trying to think of. Look it up, it may be a mirror.

I don't think the OP is a "poor excuse for a human", they just need to think things through so the decisions that are made now do not negatively effect them some time in the future.

Edit: I was responding to the comment "Bullshik was the term I was thinking of. Or poor excuse for a human…" by Hanover Custom Homes, LLC. For some reason their comment was removed.

I think it's also possible that you might have poor timing for this plan. Housing starts are up, subs are very difficult to schedule (especially knowledgeable ones that you won't have to stand over and direct step-by-step). You may NOT be able to get a framing crew, since most of them will be committed to GC's with higher volumes. Or you might have to pay quite a bit above what was the going rate even 6 months ago to get them on site.

Building and RE costs, permitting and site development all vary wildly from place to place. It's pretty hard for anybody to give you much advice there, especially without knowing where "there" is. But I think you are substantially underestimating the cost unless you're in an area where these things are much, much lower than average. I'm out in the wilds of Michigan, building on acreage, and would not expect to be able to meet that budget even with very low end and budget choices throughout.

Are we sure housing starts are still up? Interest rates climbing. Costs up because of hurricances and tariffs. Terrible time to build a spec house IMO

I don't think anyone here can say..there's lots of ways to save money (speaking from the experience of gutting a house myself--so, not a from-scratch house.)....it will cost you in time, though (besides doing the actual work yourself, you need time to source materials for dirt cheap...stuff like that isn't there when you need it, so you have to have patience).

I'm currently watching a show called "100 thousand pound house" (a British show...look it up for some interesting viewing). With the understanding that reality tv is anything but real...there are some interesting ideas on thinking outside the box with building materials.

The ability to be flexible is absolutely necessary.

IMO, you already have things in place to save you money. How much is relative to where you live, the price of subs and materials, how much personal time you have to devote to the project, etc.

My DH and I were able to stay under $100.00 a square foot in a market where custom homes cost $150.00 a square foot to build. The way we did it is I first designed the home to be as economical to build as possible. No fancy roof lines, a simple "T" shaped house with only 8 corners, no fancy porches, or turrets, or any other doodad that would increase the complexity of the plan.

I spent the previous 2 years before breaking ground scouring sales on building materials and discontinued items. That way I was able to procure higher end materials at huge discounts. We also took advantage of my husband's construction contacts and received their discounts from their suppliers. The last thing is we did 50% of the work ourselves. However, it involved both of us working on the house 8-10 hours a day, at least 6 days a week for 9 months. If you don't have the time available to work on the house, you will have to pay others, which will increase the cost. I think sometimes people don't realize how much time and effort it takes to build a house.

Good luck and I hope it all comes together for you :-)

I think you have a valuable set of skills and resources to draw on. If it were me I'd make the most of them and plan for a dual build on raw land. At least. Build two and sell one will make yours end up much cheaper than a single build. Post your plans, etc. for feedback.

Really what you are asking is how much profit does a builder receive from building the home. I don't know the answer - but I would guess 8% to 10% - that is what you will save.

The problem I see is time. How long will it take to get the home built? How are you going to finance it? No bank is going to give you a construction loan - for the years it will take to get a certificate of occupancy.

You will have three jobs: You current employment, the GC of your home, and a tradesman working on your home.

Also consider if you have an illness or get injured or get burned out working at your job + spending every available hour working on your home.

I wouldn't bank on friends or family for more than a casual amount of help - like maybe a Saturday or two.

This is an example of how even those who work in construction and handle "one piece of the pie" still never really know the total costs of a project, whether the project is a SFH or a 100 lot development. There's no secret here, the information is out there through large scale data collected through building organizations. After overhead, builders average net profit nationally is 6.4%. You may be able to retain more of the gross margins in your pocket with less overhead, but you are probably going to absorb more costs in time and "first try" experience that may end out not much better or worse on price than a large builder with the leverage of volume can provide a customer. Your price of $80-$83 s.f. to build 2500-3000 s.f. seems unrealistic in many markets. Is this price vertical build only or land too? A basement and 3 car garage added in addition? Unfinished space is not free space even though it's not calculated in per s.f. price. These structural additions will put further constraints on meeting that low "all in" price you want.

I don't think builder 'profit' is going to be a useful data point for you. Profit is more of a taxable amount after overhead. Owners I know don't make much profit because of how they manage their overhead to limit double taxation. There's plenty of room for you to save money. It'll be valuable to follow your build for some real figures.

I know a number of people who've GC'd their own homes and a few who did most of the work themselves. All but one worked out well for them and even the one that didn't work out wasn't a major loss. SO, it can be done and done well and done economically.

How old are you? Do you have a family who depend on you? Do you have friends or family who can jump in to help with small things when you just need an extra pair of strong hands for an hour or two?

I agree with the above that this is not a good time to build, which you should know if you're a project mgr. Materials costs are high, good labor is in very short supply and while poor labor is readily available it will cost you much more than waiting on and paying for good labor.

Also know that the 'friend discount' comes with some unspoken caveats like 'oops, we need to rush a couple of other jobs so won't get back to your project for 5 weeks'. It can still work out but you need to plan accordingly.

Be realistic. If you GC the project but hire out all of the work then figure maybe 8-16% lower costs - IOW, you'll save the builder markup, maybe a minor bit more. Any labor you do yourself is obviously banked if you have the skills. I can plumb and wire a house myself and I can be a laborer on a framing crew. Everything else would get hired out for me. Even on plumbing and wiring I'd likely hire someone experienced for a day to help me get started and likely towards the end to check my work.

I think Scott has left the building...