National Building Costs Price Guidelines

Cost Breakdown Guidelines

If you remember your high school chemistry, you probably recall that you can break down chemical compounds into small pieces. These parts all have a relative value with respect to the original compound. Construction projects are no different. You can break the cost of a new home down to thousands of parts if you have enough time and energy. A more reasonable breakdown would be somewhere in the range of 100 to 200 cost components.

Virtually everyone who builds needs to borrow money. Banks and savings & loans for years have had to place values on new construction in progress. Builders and remodelers who struggle to develop crisp estimates for jobs also need to have a handle on what certain things cost. Over the years some reasonable standards have been developed that allow one to estimate - with a reasonable degree of accuracy - what a particular aspect of construction might cost.

The following values are estimates of what things might cost in your part of the nation. The figures can vary depending upon the region and the total cost of the house. Custom housing figures can vary wildly. For example, a custom home might contain extravagant bathrooms and kitchens that may consume 15 percent of the total construction budget. You need to keep this in mind as you develop costs for your project. The pricing guideline books can help you get closer to an accurate number if you are doing a custom project.

Fine Tuning

You can take the above numbers and continue to break them down. For example, do a breakdown of all plumbing fixtures by room. Do the same with light fixtures.

Different regions have varying building practices. In the Midwest, basements are common. They are rare in the South. As such, the above foundation number would be wrong for a simple slab foundation. Use your common sense.