Should have mentioned this is Dallas, TX area (slab on flat, cleared lot).

I like how your contractor broke it down for you. My only advice......Add at least 15% to everything for the "what-ifs" and upgrades that will most certainly happen along the way.

Thanks... this will be a fixed fee (to the GC) project and I'll have as little or as much control over the amounts he pays for each item. I'm going to trust him with a number of them of course, although once we have final plans I'm going to attempt to get some bids myself to make sure I'm not getting the wool pulled over my eyes. He seems amazingly honest and transparent so far - almost too good to be true on the relationship side, but he's not a very experienced home builder (probably 10 or so homes built). Works mostly commercial and landscape/hardscape projects. I've walked a couple of homes he's built and they are fantastic in terms of build quality (comparing to other builders in the same community) and finish-out for the same amount of money. Just worried I'm missing something.

My unqualified opinion thinks these items are off:

HVAC: Forced air w/ AC? Price seems dirt cheap to me...
Appliances: Of course depends on personal choices, but still seems low unless all low end.
Insulation and drywall: Material only? Or labor too? Seems very low with cost of insulation included; even for TX
Landscaping/Irrigation: Just irrigation will likely be $2,000 plus. Can you fit the rest of landscaping under 3k?

Plumbing labor/fixtures seems high; especially when you have $1550 for bath hardware broken out. Is this city water or a well? If the latter then price is likely cheap though.

Appreciate the input... I need to ask about the HVAC - not sure if that includes ducting or labor or what in addtion to the equipment (which I would think is around the $8k mark by itself - 8 tons total between 2 units in his example). I agree appliances are on the low end (even without a fridge), but I've found some excellent deals in that range. Landscaping is for a tiny amount of space, but since he runs the crew I'm supposed to get a good deal on all material and labor (we'll see about that). It is on city water. I don't mind if somme things are high as long as too many aren't low. He's got some pretty high-end stuff in the home ($2k tankless gas water heater for example) that might be driving that up. Anyhow... that's the kind of input I was looking to get... just first-impressions from the quasi- and real experts here at GW.

We're building a 2750 sq ft house just up I-35 from you in Norman, OK. Labor is a bit more expensive up here so take that into consideration, but some aspects of your bid seem low. For example:

I know we paid $14,000 for HVAC, minimum SEER allowable today, two units, standard furnance (not heat pump) and an off-brand (Goodman).

Exterior windows/doors. We paid $16,000 for windows (but most of our windows are all wood) and our front door alone was close to $5,000. We purchased the door from a custom maker in Dallas.

We paid more than $6,000 for the fireplace, but it's a real wood-burning fireplace. I think the $6,000, though, does include the gorgeous exterior rock that makes up the chimney.

Appliances - We spent your budget on the range alone.

Good luck in your build.

Confirmed that the $8750 is supposedly turn-key HVAC (ducting and labor), so that line in particular has me concerned. While the finish out in terms of trim and flooring is pretty nice, there is a huge difference between a $100 sq. ft house like we're looking at vs. a $200 sq. ft house. We'll be using aluminum or vinyl windows (no casement) and a solid wood door (under $1000 for sure), so hopefully those are still reasonable. I see no incentive for the GC to underestimate those numbers since he gets paid the same fee either way... other than to "get the job" and hope I don't throw a fit down the road. He doesn't seem that way, but it's hard to know who to trust these days and we're working hard not to overbuild for our budget, or more importantly, for the neighborhood (have some cushion for both, but would prefer to stay in the lower $/ft range for the subdivision).

We are almost through with our build now, but I wish we had priced the windows, doors, and other items right after we received our budget. We have a very tight budget and some things were way out of line with what we wanted. We told the builder up front we wanted certain items, but his budget didn't reflect those choices....Maybe builders do do this to get the job as you mentioned. Once the build starts, what can you do?? We easily went over on windows and doors, especially. We actually had one person laugh out loud and say..."You will be lucky to get just a basic bottom of the line window with that!"

Good luck!

Those kind of stories are what scares us a bit. What's funny is the thing that worries me most is pricing ourselves out of the neighborhood by not catching obvious shortcomings in the proposed pricing. I'm thinking a $50k profit isn't exhorbitant and he'll give me full access to every invoice that is paid out of the various buckets to verify, etc., so I can feel pretty good that he's not padding those charges to make an extra profit. But part of his job will be helping me appropriately spend the rest of the planned budget, and I want to make sure we have realistic expectations up front. We're building in a mandated energy-star and also "green" neighborhood, which means additional costs in many areas of the home, and I just can't believe we've captured all of them. We're learning a great deal from everyone's experiences here, but it's easy to get paranoid and negative based on some of the stories =)

It looks like your tile, fireplace and window bids are pretty low compared to what I'm seeing in St. Louis. I would examine those closely.

Good luck,

Teresa

vulches, I can not give an opinion on your prices quoted as prices differ from one area to another.
I can say that you still have options to save if you want to stay within your budget. If you want to go over you can do that too. I would set aside an extra 10% or a little more if you can for unexpected expenses. Shop around for deals. If you want something special in one area of your home and possibly you are willing to spend less on something else. I chose to spend my money on my walls, cabinets, floors. I wanted plaster walls and builders use drywall in my area. I did not buy a high end stove, dishwasher etc. as I did not see a reason to. Unless it came with a chef it was not worh it to me. I found everything I wanted for a reasonable price.
I had no idea what we were getting into when we started building so I can understand your feelings. I know there were days that I said I will never do this again. We are 2 weeks from being finished and it was worth those days with stress. It is just what we hoped for.
Good Luck to you. Everyone here will be here to support you when you need to vent.

It's not a useful budget without more information about the scope of work. Find a contractor who can provide greater project management services so you won't have surprises later.

I like combining the architect fee with the temporary utilities, nice touch.

We did this same exercise in this forum a couple of weeks ago. Here is my estimate for a 3094 story and 1/2 of a moderately complex European Design. We've bid this out and have padded in a 15% contingency. I would agree that windows and doors and HVAC look a little thin in the estimate above. Our Sitework and Foundation number is a bit larger but we're doing a crawlspace on an acre with moderate challenges. ANY OPINIONS ON MINE ARE ALSO WELCOME. We're building in Charlotte, NC. The final number has gone up about 10K as we've received some clarity on the stairs and fireplaces as well as a new cabinet bid (Haas Cabinetry).

Here is a link that might be useful: Click

I knew you were in Texas even before you said so. Nothing like a Texas budget!

I'm in Central TX and building a 3/3 house with 3012sf first floor, 452sf finished bonus room over garage, 662sf garage, 514sf covered porches and 320sf workshop/lawn storage. Here is my budget for the same items:

START-UP FEES
(soil testing, insurance, permits, temp fac. & util., engineering - does not include architect since I paid that separately) - 12,800

SITE WORK/ FOUNDATION (steel foundation not post-tension) - 55,000

FRAMING MAT & LAB (includes radiant barrier roof sheathing) - 49,000

EXT. WINDOWS & DOORS (includes all wood exterior doors $2000 front dbl. doors & vinyl windows) - 8,600

ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS/LIGHTING 15,500

PLUMBING LABOR & FIXTURES 10,300

HVAC SYSTEM (3 zones, 16 SEER) - 14,900

FIREPLACE (insert) - 2,500

ROOFING (40yr. shingles & ridge vent) - 11,450

INSULATION & DRYWALL (batt walls, blown cell attic) - 17,500

STONE/STUCCO MAT & LAB - 30,600

CABINETS (custom built by GC) - 8,200

COUNTERTOPS (all granite except solid surface in util.) - 5,000

INTERIOR TRIM & STAIRS (stained pine) - 6,000

FLOORING (stained concrete & wide plank pine) - 15,500

TILE (about 930sf Travertine & Slate purchased in Mexico) - 4,800

PAINT -7,200

DOOR & CABINET HARDWARE - 5,000

BATH HARDWARE (towel bars, hooks, soap dishes, tp holders, mirrors) - 1,700

APPLIANCES - 8,500

LANDSCAPING/IRRIGATION (1 acre but leaving most natural) - 8,500

SECURITY SYSTEM - 1,650

CLEAN UP - 1,550

We have a fixed price bid but still managed to go over budget with allowances by about $35k (I included the over budget stuff in the above numbers). When we're finished it should cost about $410k.

I always appreciated when people were willing to give numbers on line items. Even with generalities it really did help me out a lot. For me, knowing someones region was probably the most important factor.

I forgot to add that my builder runs a very small operation. He only builds two houses a year and does almost all of the finish work himself along with his pay-rolled three man crew. He builds the cabinets and interior doors himself. I've been pretty happy with his quality with a few exceptions which were addressed and dealt with.

My biggest grip with him is that he said it would take a max of 8 months and we are now in month 12 and probably have 2 more months to go. I figured that by the time we are done, we will have paid over $7k in additional interest.

Smaller and especially inexperienced builders don't have as much control over subs and often underbid/estimate what it's going to take to get the house done. They also don't have a lot of capital and really really depend on every draw to move to the next step. I know I'm making a huge generalization but this has been my experience and the experience of a couple of other people I know.

If I could have done it over again, I would have micro managed the project to the enth degree. My builder is pretty easy going and we have a good relationship so he probably would have been okay with more involvement from me.

In the end, we will have a house appraised about $100k more than what we paid for it so I'm keeping my eye on the prize.

Thanks all for the tips and information. It's nice to feel these things out when evaluating builders. I'm trying hard to get another builder to share similar information from a recently completed house in the size/price range so we can further evaluate the reasonableness of the first GC's preliminary budget.

It's hard to believe builders are providing one page budget estimates given the availability of project cost estimation software today.
The first thing I would ask them is "Do you have your own truck?"

I agree with Mighty. It's worth the couple hundred dollars and 2-3 hours to get a regional estimate from someone like resi-cost.com. It was the starting point for our budget/estimate. Money/Time well spent in my opinion.

Here is a link that might be useful: Resiential Contruction Estimating Website

I'm in the DFW area and many of your categories seem just shy of where I would expect them. For example, I got vinyl window bids that ranged from $6,000 to $12,000 and spent $2,000 on exterior doors (2 fiberglass patio doors, 1 steel door, 1 mahogany front door from a building surplus store). Something that struck me when reading your posts is the GC mentioning 8 tons for the HVAC and you'll have 2900sqft??! Please, please make *sure* whoever you use for your HVAC does a Manual J. Many of the companies I contacted in this area would dance around my question of Manual J load calculations. Yes, they do load calcs, but many do not do Manual J.

Your plumbing labor and fixtures seem right on, but the electrical and lighting seem too low. My electrical bids ranged from $12k (a friend) to $14k. I'm trying hard to stay in the $3k range for lighting.

So many things have gone up in price here recently. Concrete is going up in this area July 1st and electrical supplies just went up 20%. Roofing went up May 1st due to all the hail storms recently. I would just expect this time of year to be high for lumber.

Definitely get as many bids and check references. Make sure to ask clients if his original estimate was in line with the final price. Good luck!

Re: "HVAC SYSTEM 8,750.00 "

As noted above that looks pretty cheap to be a turnkey job, including equipment, ducting, & labor. What brand of equipment is being used? Most likely Goodman or a secondary type of line. I don't think there is anything wrong w/ Goodman equipment per se but since anyone can buy it the installation might not be up to par. Some of the secondary brands may have manufacturing quality issues.

Re: "INSULATION & DRYWALL 13,500.00 "

That looks cheap as well. A rule of thumb is 4.5 times your sq footage equals the drywall sq footage. Obviously depends on a lot of factors like wall heights, number of windows/doors, is the garage being sheetrocked, etc.

But 4.5 times 3,000 is 13,500 sq ft. A good price is $1/sq ft so that is $13,500 right there. I would think insulation material costs would be about $4,000, not including labor.

So that line item might be off-base by something in the neighborhood of $5,000.

Great comments by all... I'm going to invest the money in resi-cost if for nothing else, some peace of mind. It's so difficult to compare builders without a set plan, and few are willing to share real-world examples (the example I gave is actually straight from the bank's draw schedule).

dannie_gal - is there an ideal time of year to start, in your opinion, in order to get better prices, or is it just a crapshoot? I figure any bad hurricanes in the gulf could also throw a wrench into things as far as raw materials costs. No way to predict I suppose...

Drywall labor for 2200 square feet on my new house was $2000. Tape, bed, & texture, including some hand troweling was $3100.

Trim carpenter labor $3100.

Framing labor $17,000

Tilework $6000

HVAC was $17,000 but that was 2 Trane 2-stage 16i units plus an ERV plus an auxiliary mini-split unit in the master bedroom.

30-year shingles and installation for about 55 squares was about $5000.

Cabinetry $11,000.

Plumbing, with tankless water heater $13,500.

Painting $10,500.

Slab including 64 piers $19,000.

Marvin wood clad windows $9200.

Insulation, including foam in walls and ceilings that touch the outside $8400.

Light fixtures $2700.

Electrical $9000.

On a $215,000 budget we went over by about $20,000 due to upgrades.

vulches - no, there really isn't any way to predict. To give you an example, in December, lumber prices here were close to $6/sqft, but in early February they were down in the neighborhood of $3/sqft. Lumber is one of those things that can vary week to week. You just really never know for sure. It seems like we have just squeaked by the price increases. My electrician bought all the wiring for our house on a Friday and by Monday the prices went up 20%. Also, there are just so many other seemingly little misc. things that aren't addressed in the bank draw schedule that can really make an impact on your overall budget and really drive up the costs.

thanks dannie_gal - what kind of misc. things have you seen that impact the budget? The impression I get from reading many posts in this forum is that there is no way to actually come in at or under budget without sacrificing things. Why aren't people building in a better cushion during the budgeting process? I guess I don't understand how an extra $30-50k can be spent when any one item isn't even that large (ok, framing, but that's about it). Even then, labor doesn't always increase with commodity prices, so a 20% swing in lumber might affect the framing budget by 10% or whatever proportion the actual lumber is to the framing budget. I suppose it's possible to get stung with increases across the board all at once, but it just seems strange to me to see the prevalence of budget issues. We've got a really good handle on the finish out items (flooring, trim, cabinetry, granite etc.), as we just completed an overhaul of our current home. The $15k contingency we've thrown up seems way more than enough (haha, I know what everyone is thinking), but only if we can get to a realistic number on the things we don't know so well.