Small Houses Part 3

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by OutdoorLover

So I caution that I am guesstimating here, but you could always ask a builder for a price if you are serious*. From what I have read, building materials have overall fallen in price over the past 6 months, but I don't think they've gone back to what they were a few years ago. This is a small house, which tends to cost more on a per-square-foot basis too. I'd therefore use a figure of $225/sq ft, which would make it about $150k for that building.

*Hammond Lumber locations in Maine also offers free material cost estimates given a house plan or sketch. You'd still have to account for labor costs and site work, but it would be another piece of information for you to consider.

I guess that sounds about right.

A lot more than the $30/sq ft that I spent.

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by Submariner

I guess that sounds about right.

A lot more than the $30/sq ft that I spent.

Yeah, I totally get the sticker shock. From reading your posts, I think you built your place a good while back and did most of the work yourself. There has been good deal of inflation in materials cost over the years, and that's especially true the past 5 years. Then we're also talking adding in the cost of all the labor being farmed out instead of largely DIY.

As far as price variability, the price can vary a lot today based based on differences in the quality of materials and systems chosen; builders profits are also not standard by any means. I moved my own project back maybe 5 years, but when I was talking turkey with some midcoast builders a few years ago, I saw that some were literally charging double the overhead of other builders. So if it's something you are interested in, please don't take my word for it - talk to some builders and show them the plans you're interested in and give them an idea of what kinds of materials you actually want used to better tune the estimate.

As a simple realty check, I just did a Zillow search for standalone Maine houses under $400k, built in 2022 or newer, and found these among the smaller sized home hits... of course the land is included in these costs and you could subtract that from these figures to get the building costs, but none of these are waterfront homes or located in high cost towns, so I'd guess these lots are maybe $60k-$75k. I believe the three cheapest houses are built on an insulated slab with frost walls - which saves some money on the foundation and isn't a bad idea in my opinion, though I would still want it raised higher above grade to head off any water issues.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/6...44621982_zpid/

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4...55323287_zpid/

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1...41881964_zpid/

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2...54425874_zpid/