Construction Cost Estimate to Create Basement Apartment?

[Maureen F.]

Could anyone help estimate a ball-park number to turn part of an unfinished basement into a 700 square foot apartment (either a large 1-BR or small 2-BR, one bathroom)?  Just for construction, excluding architect, legal, permit, zoning, financing, etc.  The basement is dry with a high ceiling, so assume that we won't need to lower the floor to achieve more height.  And the foundation extends fairly high above ground, so should not be too difficult to create the required windows.  This is in Boston (Dorchester) which is a high cost area.  Is 40K inadequate?  We'd like to figure out the payback before we start off down the long road to City approval.

[Thomas S.]

Recouping also dependent on market rents in your area for basement units.

I would not say that 40K is woefully inadequate but you could easily be looking at $60K, it depends on a lot of factors. On the other hand $40K could easily do the job if you did the work yourself.

Contracted labour, depending on your market, usually doubles the budget.