Singing Pig

Are their any builders out there, or experienced developers that will give an estimate on the costs of building individual dwellings, 1 bed flats, 2 bed, terrace houses and detached?

It would help when trying to calculate whether a parcel of land would give sufficient profit once built on.  On another thread today I mentioned I'd visited a commercial auction where I watched as building contractors bought land way over the guide price, my crude calculations made me steer well clear of these deals, so obviously my figures are too generous for build costs.

Can anyone advise?

Ollie,

Building costs are what you want them to be - its a pretty difficult item to put any one particular number on as it depends on part of the country, the spec you are building to and as you say what you are building.

Self builders can sometimes build at around £50 per sq ft, the cheapest contractors are prob about £70 per sq ft, running to approx £110-120 per sq ft in S East and London and up to £250 -300 per sq ft on very high spec houses.

The reason that building contractors overpay for sites is that they have a large workforce that they employ and they have to continually keep work for them as they dont want to have them sitting around doing nothing. So its worthwhile for them to make lower returns say 10% on a site if it keeps their men working.

regards 

Thanks Brian

You say its difficult to put a figure on it but those build figures are round about what I expected.  Say 50k for a 2 bed flat, slightly less for 1 bed, and this should include the finished site - parking, fencing, landscaping, the lot.

It seems that new builds at the moment in terms of the finishings are all pretty similar and you usually know what your getting before walking in the door anyway.  With this in mind it might not be so difficult to cost up.

I'm glad you mentioned builders taking on projects with a profit as little as 10% - that makes sense.  I know I look to make 20% profit on overall cost which includes financing.  This is precisely the reason why I think auction houses are not the best place to source this kind of investment.

Thanks Ian

I had a quick look at the notes on this manual.  It confirmed the cost of building both residential and commercial units.  What I'm yet to understand is why

(according to this manual) commercial units, i.e. warehouse space, office space etc is more expensive than say building a house.

My idea of a purpose built warehouse is simply galvanised steel frames, a concrete base, and prefab walls.

Can anyone offer advice on this?

Industrial buildings are a bit more robust than a shed. The floors often need to handle significant loadings, and the roof spans are often big which bumps up the price.

 
Another factor is competition - lots more residential development which drives costs of materials and labour down. Industrial and office construction is more specialised.