Written by Spear Builders

How much will it cost to build your home?

Now that you know what type of home you're going to build, the next task is to figure out how much it's going to cost. You'll need a rough cost to determine whether or not the home site and house will fit your budget. The total cost of your home is made up of two components: soft costs and hard costs.

Soft costs are any costs that are not directly related to construction, things like permit fees, impact fees, utilities, taxes, loan interest, and tap fees. Soft costs are found by working with your lender, municipality, and local utility companies. Your bank will give you an estimate of the loan costs and loan interest. The municipality will help you with permit fees, impact fees, and tap fees.

Hard costs are materials and labor to build your home. For example, roofing should be about three percent of the total house cost. These percentages will give you some guidance for putting together your budget. As always, remember prices can vary depending on materials and location. An asphalt roof in Fredericksburg, VA, isn't comparable to a tile roof in Charlottesville, VA. But this should still give you a good standpoint.

For hard costs, you don't want to spend a whole lot of time and money at this point bidding the house out to subcontractors. Instead, there are several decent sources for estimating residential construction based on a square foot.

Take the sales price of a new home similar to the one you want to build and reduce it by twenty percent for land and then another twenty percent for builder profit. This will give you a very rough estimate for the cost of building your home. Keep in mind this is only a rough estimate. The quality of materials and finishes you choose will affect the cost in a big way.

With your rough estimate of the cost of building your home, add your lot price to it to get the actual total rough estimated cost. If this falls within your budget, you're ready to continue. At Spear Builders, we have the best custom home builders in Virginia. Contact us today.