Ours went about 10% over. Most of the overages were because our builder bid the cabinets incorrectly. I'm not sure what he was thinking! :) The best advice I could give you would be to be VERY specific about the finishes and "extras" that you want before you get a bid and then stick to your choices. The more exact you are in your choices upfront, the fewer surprises you'll have later on. Still, you should figure at LEAST 10%-20% extra for things that come up during the build. Good luck!

I could be a little off but I think it was 1.7% overage. We were over in dirt work, plus upgrades we decided on for electrical, lighting, doors, enlarging the courtyard and granite. We were under for the running the water, pump/ pump house, cabinets and tile.

We would have been w-a-y over if we hadn't gone through the bid with fine tooth comb and uped some of the allowances after talking with the suppliers.

On the fix bid part of the contract, the contractor had to eat overages on roofing and stone work. The major mistakes the suppliers made were in the Trusses.

Hope this helps and may your build go smoothly

We did not go over budget. I picked out almost everything - with the exception of light fixtures and kitchen cabinetry - before we broke ground. I bought a ton of things on the internet (all plumbing fixtures and faucets, light fixtures, cupola for examples) and priced door hardware online and locally. Found it for less locally. For the online purchased, I shopped online and bought during sales (holiday sales were really good - Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day)

Be sure to buy/order things ahead of time so they are there and ready before needed - not after!

My best advice it to have your plans perfected before breaking ground so there are no changes (only minor minor ones) during construction. Our GC was awesome and did not charge for changes. We built at cost plus his fee - set before we started based on bids. If we were under, his pay went down but if we went over, his did not go up. His idea! He looked after us, was always after the best bang for our buck and wasn't afraid to ask for a better price when an invoice came in he thought was too high (scaffolding rental, for example).

He was quick to remind me it would cost what I made it cost. lol Ask yourself what do you have to have and what can you live without....or how can you still have what you want but cost less. Hope that makes sense!

Stick with what you can afford and don't do "well, while we're building..." additions during construction. They will add up fast.

Good luck!

We went about 15% over. Most of that was due to price increase in shingles and concrete last summer and unforseen dirt work for the pad.

I did things a lot like Allison. We had a cost plus contract and I bought a lot of things online and ahead of time. I perused the clearance sections and if I found something I liked, I bought it then instead of waiting until it was needed. My builder was great about helping us find more economical ways to do things and still come out with the desired effect.

We also took over after the house was in the dry. We contracted out the drywall finishers and roofers. We have done all the other finish work ourselves such as concrete floor staining, all painting, installation of interior doors, tiling, lighting, and trim.

The only overage was for an engineered foundation that my builder did not anticipate (tho I asked him if we should consult soil engineers - he said no). There went my decorating budget...

Currently about 1% under budget with about a month to go. Allison0704 hit the nail on the head- pick everything out in advance! I heard a great saying- "twice in, half out." Adding anything after you have a contract will cost you twice as much and taking anything out with save you about half as much.

My builds were generally always right on target or slightly under. But here's the caveats:

When I built a spec; I had a 100+ page MS Project spreadsheet that laid out EVERYTHING. And I mean EVERYTHING. On this day, we order XXXX deck screws from McFeely's so they'd be here on XXX day. On this day, we send in our order to Sherwin Williams for this many gallons of THIS paint and this sheen, and we call and schedule XX painter to be there on XX day.

What happens is when we get to custom or semi-custom and people either don't know ahead of time, or decide to change things that it goes off track.

Consider: We will build XX house design with XX cabinets in the kitchen, with XX countertop, and with XX appliances. Everything is on target, or underbudget.

That's much different than "They poured the foundation last week and finished the framing; and now looking at it, I think that the Alder cabinets 'might' look better than the base ones they had in the drawing....what do you think?"

Fact is; the more things you KNOW before you build, the less it will go over budget. On the fly ALWAYS costs more.

We went 12% over.