Estimating Residential Construction Cost Per Square Foot
How to estimate residential construction cost per square foot is an obvious question if you are considering building one. Also, it is an equally difficult a question for any builder to give any accurate answer. There are a lot of factors which will influence the per square foot cost of construction. Already the per square foot calculation is done taking into account only the living area. This excludes the construction of sewers, driveway, porches, garage and other many such components of residential construction cost per square foot and the estimate that comes out is a false estimate. Experienced builders say that the average price per square foot has gone up drastically in the last five years. In 2001, the average of the per square foot was $85 for a living area of around 2000 square foot. According to the reports, these prices climbed up to $112 in 1995, $175 in 2006 and $175 in the year 2007.
There are numerous factors behind such persistent hike in the average per square foot price. Primarily it is because of rapidly increasing prices of some of crucial building materials. Increase in steel prices have been 50% since 2003. Hike in concrete has reached 18%. PVC pipes are extremely important if you want clean water to come to your house and to remove the waste generated. Cost of PVC pipes have gone up to 35%. The entire electrification is done with copper wiring. Copper has become dearer by 300% since 2006. The hike in crude oil prices has sky-rocketed the cost of shipping and transporting. Similarly, the prices of asphalt and roofing materials have also gone through the roof. All these factors make the job of calculating per square foot pricing very difficult. It is also believed that the international price will see a hike constant. Thus keeping this scenario in mind one needs to move ahead with correct estimating. The emergence of many other competing economies has built a lot of pressure on the supply (and led to, in some cases, a further hike in prices). Recent disasters in the US (like hurricane Katrina and Wilma) have also contributed to the price hike. The entire region of New Orleans is going to witness reconstruction due to which there is an evident rise of cement prices in the market. It has also been observed that if you are building a residence with a smaller living area, it comes out to be comparatively costlier than houses with a larger living area. There are very important cost categories which will go into the building of your living and non-living area and which would be excluded from the shown residential construction cost per square foot. Thus, the per square foot pricing of the total area of construction (and involving total expenditure involved in construction) would be much more realistic. |
