Is there a way to figure home building costs without labor?

Question

I am curious if there is a way to figure how much it would be to build a home without the labor. Every sight I search shows the national average cost for home building but they throw in the national labor wage. How do I figure it out?

Answer 1

Average cost / 3 = materials cost only in general practice.

This was taught me, some 45 yrs. ago and seems to hold true today. The scope and size of contract when going the other way, as in pricing, "what to charge a customer" from a contractors point of view has a bearing on stipulated price, that in turn contains both material and labour. They seem to charge (material cost X 3.33 = contract price) on average. Maybe this is "Murphy"s Law" allowance

You can check it out simply by taking a set of drawings into "Big Box Store" for material take-off and pricing, Then take the same drawings to 3 contractors for Estimates, Subtract material cost from Estimates, average your results divide by material cost and see how close to "TWO" the result is, closer to "TWO" the better!

In residential construction I always say spend more on the materials and less on labour...

Answer 2

Both 1 and 2 are valid,,, I'll add my thoughts.

First of all WHY?

Then,,, Design blueprints, Lumber, concrete, nails, screws, roofing materials, insulation materials, plumbing, electrical, windows, doors, misc. hardware, flooring, staircases, paint, caulking, drywall, MUD, Tape, Molding, light fixtures, heating sources, AC sources, delivery and/or pick up costs, permits and site prep, cleanup, any or all landscaping, garage or carport materials, yada yada yada.

The reason your search has been largely unsuccessful is that what you're looking for is statistically averaged, and homes built by contractors have issues factored in such as overages, or borrowing from another site, etc.

Building a house certainly isn't usual for a DIY, and certainly not advocated for anyone without experience.

Since you don't state the reason for the Q,,, I hope to assume you're just polling the audience, and not considering undertaking the task of actually Building it yourself.

Steven Wolf

Answer 3

You would have to research the prices of all the component pieces individually. I don't really see any reason to do that as it is a large undertaking and doesn't yield any meaningful results.

Answer 4

Make a material list, call some places for prices and figure it out....don't forget nails and sales tax.