Custom Home Building Services:
There are many factors that come into play when determining a price for a custom floor plan, some of the main ones are outlined below.
Soft Costs:
Soft costs are the costs associated with your specific lot location and include things like fill, clearing permit and impact fees. Different lots have different fill dirt costs which are determined by the finished floor elevation requirements vs the current lot elevation. Also any clearing required will also add to the costs as well. Keep in mind the removal of trees will require additional dirt to be brought in to fill in the holes left by removal of the stumps. The tree debris will also need to be hauled away as well. Permit costs and impact fees are determined by the local governing municipality and have a direct relationship to the house size and the “impact” it will have on the neighborhood.
Floor Plan & Structural Engineering:
The floor plan layout and structural engineering have a direct effect on the costs associated to construct. The more complex the floor plan is, the more it will cost to construct. More complex plans require additional engineering and additional engineering usually requires a more highly skilled subcontractor to execute. Plan engineering will determine a lot of things, including the number of concrete pour cells and size of structural beams required to span across different openings. Concrete costs typically makes up 15-20% of any housing budget and therefore has a major impact on build cost. The number of courses of concrete required for your stem wall foundation, as well as the specific engineering of footers, pour cells and the height of your beam are major contributors to concrete costs.
Structural aspects, such as ceiling heights, soffits / beam widths and depths, column sizes, etc., shown on the initial schematic design set are subject to change upon design and review from the engineer of record for the project. Efforts will be made to design within the initial parameters shown, however modifications will be made as needed to meet structural and building code requirements.
Selections & Finishes:
Finishes have to do with flooring and cabinets selections as well as electrical and plumbing fixtures. As you can imagine there are an array of different options and all of which have major differences in costs. Flooring costs have the greatest swing in prices with Carpet being the most affordable and the cost of popular plank tiles being a lot more. Cabinets costs vary based on the composition of the cabinet boxes, the door styles and the cabinet options. Plumbing and light fixtures also have big swings, designer fixtures always garner a premium.
Final Thoughts:
Once we have a complete understanding of the above information we can accurately price out a set of plans within a few weeks time. The final timeline has a lot to do with how quickly we can get your selections finalized. If you have a custom home plan you need priced out or are interested in having a set of plans created, please reach out to us and we will help you to understand the next steps.
The initial services covered in your LOI are:
- Initial meeting with Architect (Up to 2 hours)
- Drawing of full set of plans with up to 3 revisions, then $500 per revision thereafter
- Engineering of full plan
- Up to 4 hour Design session, then $150 per hour thereafter
The final services covered in your LOI are:
- Preparation of scope of work for each trade based on plans and selections
- Sending out bid requests
- Receiving and reviewing all bids to create a line item budget
- Presenting line item budget
We charge $4.00PSF (of total sqft) for all of the above services. The total is broken down into two payments, 50% to start initial services and 50% to start the final services. Any surveys, elevation certificates or other engineering required by site are priced out per location with a 15% additional cost to coordinate order and interpret results.
A copy of our Letter of Intent to build with us is attached, which would be filled out with information specific to your project.
Letter of Intent – Document Here