But you do have a point when talking about "unfinished" areas. A house with 2500 sq ft with increased or decreased square footage in the porches will change that number. Same thing with the garage space--a 2 car will cost less than a 3 car. That $100 sq ft is just a ballpark figure. Depending on your location, this can change as well. You may want to check out the thread DCRanger started on cost estimators to get a better idea (make sure to read the entire thread) Here is a link that might be useful: DCRanger's Cost Estimator Thread

Dried in is 50% of the blow your mind budget that your professional General Contractor will give you, after your Architect Designs and Specifies what the General will give you a quote to Build. No one can give costs to an imaginary structure. Just market trends. Like a verrry rough psf of $250-$450. Lot purchase. Design. Estimate. Redesign. Reestimate. Permit. Build. Keep Building. Out of Money. Must be Done.

Well, we're building just north of NYC, and I certainly WISH our land were 20% of our estimated total budget. If it were, though, we'd be building a house with a budget of about $3 million. So much of the land value boils down to where you build, and the relative scarcity of available lots. That having been said, I don't think you can really carve a budget up that way in most cases. It's probably smartest in the long run to look at the total picture - can you afford to build the house you want on the land you're considering? Will the house you want fit into the neighborhood surrounding the lot without being either the biggest or the smallest house around? Without locking in to any specific design, and just considering meta-issues like square footage, would the kind of house you're considering look right where you want to put it? Since we were kind of locked into the land portion of our situation due to a family agreement, we had to "back in" to our construction budget. We looked at our available funds, subtracted the cost of the land from the top, and saved until we were in a position to build the kind of house we wanted. I imagine anyone could look at the going rate on lots for sale in any area and do something similar, though. It took a long time to save up the cash, but we're finally there, and it'll be nice to work on building what we want without too many enormous compromises.

CSKI13, Without other details, I suspect what they meant by "rambling ranch" was that you had a complicated footprint. That adds significantly to the cost. Tom, that's a very simple ranch floorplan. A style like that will be the cheapest possible build, regardless of whether you go stick-built or modular. While that floorplan may not boast a great deal of "flash", it looks like a solid, comfortable place to live. The plumbing's consolidated, the bedroom hall isn't too long, the rooms are a comfortable size. I think the windows in the utility room and the window over the kitchen sink look a little sad ... I'd make them larger, or perhaps embellish them with some window boxes or something. However -- pointing out the obvious -- these ranches are widely available, and a house bought on the resale market is almost always cheaper than a new, custom-built house. With this in mind, why would you put the money and the effort into building? You're not likely to want to stay in this house for the rest of your life. I'd be okay with a no-view dining room; I'd do a banquette against the back wall -- very practical with kids. I'd add another window (or slider) on the left wall of the living room. You have the space, and additional light from a second side would really open up that room. With another 2-4' of width in the utility room you could have a desk and floor-to-ceiling shelving. You'd sit at the desk with your back to the washing machine -- painted a pretty color and accented with a few nice things, this could be "a real room", not just the laundry. This would provide you with an "away space" for one person. You could even include a peek-a-boo window into the kitchen. Of course, this would enlarge the half bath are too ... allowing you BOTH a large closet opening into the bathroom AND a built-in bookshelf opening towards the living room. Sounds like a win-win-win for the low price of 2-4' width in that garage-connector area. Even for a budget project, that little bit extra will add a great deal of liveability to the house. 10-20% savings, if that's the difference between stick and modular, ABSOLUTELY IS a pile of money. If, of course, you end up with a similar-quality product -- and that, I don't know. One last thought: I'm pretty sure my Bible told me it's ALL God's country!