All Forum Posts by: Joshua Stewart

@Mike Wood Yes some of those prices we are paying are more than I would typically expect, and some a lot more. This project is what I would consider average on finish selections, though it is customized since the investors/clients will live in it at first... I am not sure what they plan to rent it for ultimately, as that is a few years away... Construction began in mid September; framing is nearly done.

Yes, those costs are incorporated into specific line items such as Misc GC items, plumbing, etc... We did not have to pay fees for Historic District review. An ADU is staff-level approval so there was no requirement to present to the commission. I am doing a new construction in the same neighborhood that is single-family which is $1,100 +/- to the Historic District.

Seeing as this is the New Construction forum and a lot of the questions are some version of “how much does it cost to build X” I thought I would share some real numbers and experience from a project we currently have under construction.

This project is an Accessory Dwelling - 720 sqft with one bedroom, one bathroom, a living room, kitchen and small laundry room plus a screened porch. It is located within a Historic District in Charlotte, NC. I designed this project for the homeowners and am overseeing contractor selection and management. The homeowners are going to move in once we are finished and rent out the primary house on this property, then switch in a few years and rent out the ADU.

First, here are the raw numbers:

1. Foundation: $13,000
2. Framing: $14,200
3. Siding: $11,000
4. Roofing: $4,750
5. HVAC: $5,500
6. Electrical: $4,800
7. Plumbing: $7,500
8. Insulation: $2,500
9. Drywall: $8,000
10. Paint: $5,200
11. Flooring: $4,200
12. Cabinets: $3,800
13. Countertops: $3,000
14. Appliances: $5,500
15. Misc #1: $36,600 (labor/materials by GC)
16. Doors, Windows, Trim, Cabinet and Hardware Install, Screened Porch, Fence, Landscaping, Dumpster, Project Management Fee
17. Misc #2: $8,000 (supplied by Designer/Me)
18. Fixtures, Hardware, Shower Door, Wardrobe Cabinet, Tree Removal, Construction Administration
19. Design Fees: $3,650

That combines for a total cost of $141,200. For what it’s worth, we had multiple contractors price this project and they came in fairly close to one another. We went with the one I had worked with the most and brought the higher confidence level.

Charlotte is hot with new construction, and has been for a while. It was very difficult to get many of our regular subcontractors to even bid the project, let alone give a price anywhere near reasonable. Simply put, very few around here need the work, especially something considered small. There are several trades and line items we consider too high, but we could not get any reliable alternatives. Another factor was the tariffs that went into effect.

Now, I have a spec house project I designed near Raleigh that is three times the size of this one and is being built for less than half the price per sqft. One of the reasons for the cost discrepancy is that the owner/investor for that project also has their contractors license and has no need to hire a builder to pull permits and manage the project. Another factor is that the price per sqft actually goes up when you build smaller, as you still have the big-ticket items that cost more. A house with more sqft is primarily more bedrooms and larger living spaces, these cost less to build. The Raleigh project also began construction six months before this Accessory Dwelling and did not have the full brunt of the tariffs the ADU did.

This isn’t a marketing post, so I won’t get into the pros and cons of hiring a designer versus buying house plans online. But I will say that it was a significant difference on a project like this, and has saved the homeowners quite a bit of money in avoiding or negating potential change orders, especially since construction began.

I hope some of you find this helpful. I will post some photos of the project below and update as we complete construction. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions you have. I love to help when I can and to learn from all of you as well.

A quick note on your expected $50k cost... I am building a 720 sqft 1 bed, 1 bath unit for a client and it took a lot of number crunching and back-and-forth to get the cost down to $144k. And there is nothing fancy about our project. There are several reasons for this, but one thing I will point out here is that when building less sqft, the price per sqft increases because you still have the big-money items such as the kitchen and a bathroom. Extra sqft means more bedrooms and a larger living area, which are cheaper to build per sqft.

With you being a skilled contractor and doing as much of the work as you can, that definitely helps drive the cost down. And while building here in Charlotte is probably a little more costly than the Augusta market, $50k for 800 sqft seems far too low.... Do you have a house plan that has been sent to your subs and that you've used to get a complete estimate to verify the price?

J Scott's diary of a new construction project linked above is gold. Not just for the pricing info he gives but for the insight into the entire process start to finish.

Also as was mentioned above: existing relationships, potential future work and current construction schedules factor a lot into the prices you get back. You can have two GC's bid apples-to-apples and still end up with different prices simply on these factors alone. But the more you can define and specify in your architectural and engineer drawings the more accurate your estimates should be.

What is the zoning for this land? I am always inclined to build singe-family new construction, but that is my niche. You can do a lot with 25 acres depending on zoning and location.

@Antwain Peterson When I was looking at doing a similar project in my town (outside Charlotte) we were also going for annexation. In addition to all of the things to look for that @Greg Dickerson mentioned, my city also said they would want to see an architectural concept of at least one home type that we would build as part of our application and approval process. Being that I design homes for a living that was the easy part, however the rest of it became too much for what we were looking to do at the time... The city did tell me that it could easily take 6 months just to get a preliminary approval, and the entire process would be somewhere around one year before we would have everything we needed in place to even start breaking ground.

Something else to keep in mind are the cost savings you will find when spending more upfront in design. A lot (most) of the time people building one of their first investment homes want to spend as little as possible on a set of plans. However a good designer can save you more in construction costs than you pay them in design fees, and you end up with a home that performs better and is more attractive to homebuyers.

I am a Designer and have done new construction bungalows in Charlotte, and am looking at growing into Kansas City.

@Jason Turgeon thanks, that is very helpful!