What did your build cost come out at 2024/25!

[JackOrion]

Been a while since I've visited the forum but interesting to see these figures.

 

We're in West Yorkshire, and were quoted somewhere between £5500 and £7000 per sqm (!!!) earlier this year from main contractors.

 

Single storey 120sqm building. Timber frame to almost passivhaus standard / triple glazed windows / MVHR etc..

 

Our plot also ticks all the £££ boxes: Tricky access, sloping site, piled foundations.

 

Architects were designing to a budget of around £3k per sqm. Way off.

 

One contractor actually told me their QS had priced it so high as they were looking at the final value of the house and bumped it up accordingly. (Is that standard?!)

 

We're still having to go through some serious value engineering, and looking likely we'll have to do much of the project managing from weathertight shell onwards ourselves.

 

 

 

 

[Mr Punter]

1 hour ago, JackOrion said:

We're in West Yorkshire, and were quoted somewhere between £5500 and £7000 per sqm (!!!) earlier this year from main contractors.

 

I think you should shop around for more quotes or just sell the land on.  Surely you can buy a top end finished project for less than this?

[saveasteading]

3 hours ago, JackOrion said:

project managing from weathertight shell onwards ourselves.

That's the easy bit, and not where the costs lie.

 

For any once in a lifetime prospective self-builders looking here.

This is really about getting it done by builders. For actual hands-on self build it is different.

 

I don't know what I would advise re cost expectations except to say don't believe what anyone is telling you that has something to gain.

eg that self building is cost effective

or any £/m2 rate unless there is a formal quote to justify it.

 

I was a main contractor for decades, and worked for local biggish contractors before that: not for domestic housing, but the principles apply.

Doing a one-off project is a risk, and the client has to pay a  premium as  as the contractor will have it covered either as a lump sum, or in cautious contract terms.

No QS knows the price. even with a detailed design in front of them. They are making many assumptions. Without a detailed design then even more so.

A contractor's estimator is doing what a QS does but with inside knowledge of what their employer is efficient at and the overheads expected, and they can get feedback from previous projects and input from preferred subcontractors. Even so the quotes may vary dramatically.

 

 

The more individual a design is, the more the price will increase. This is because of basically experiments by the architect.

This is a risk.

so is the fact that every client is a one-off....  I will exaggerate slightly but it is an 'amateur' client with an obsessive interest in progress and detail, and an untested inclination to pay on time and in full.

 

The specialist contractor is the best or only party who can give a realistic price and good advice on  value engineering.  But they won't because they know the ideas will be hived out to other parties.

The best projects for me and for our clients were those starting from  a position of mutual trust. Either repeat clients or those to whom we had been recommended. We want x, what will it cost?  By that relationship we can input ideas and efficiency from the outset.  OR the client gives us a sketch design and we can use or criticise as necessary.  But generally a domestic client won't have these contacts or feel able to trust the contractor.

3 hours ago, JackOrion said:

QS had priced it so high as they were looking at the final value

 

So they hadn't a clue what they were doing, and guessed a safe figure. 

 

 

Hence a one-off self build is an expensive thing to do. You must have knowledge or a very special reason to want that site and that design. Otherwise buy somebody else's when they have to move on.

 

Sorry.