Cost of adding an addition to the house

[EQ_Bo_07]

We are considering adding another room to our current house. But before I start actively looking into this, I was curious if any of you have gone through adding a room to the house. I am just looking for another room- nothing fancy that I will use as a family room and an office. If you don't mind, please share the cost of the project. Of course I realize that prices are different in different locations, but just wanted to get a ball park and see if we can even afford to do this.

[eyedoc_01]

We did about two rooms and two closets with a crawlspace beneath. No plumbing involved. Had to spend extra to upgrade the electric and zone the heating and cooling. Put in hardwood floors but nothing else too fancy.

If you don't have to add to upgrade the electric, mess much with the HVAC, we paid about $190/square foot. If you could put in a slab instead of a crawlspace depending on where you are that could save some $$$ too.

Oh, we had an architect too, instead of a design build firm. His cost was about 5% of the total cost. You guys sound like you could get away without one. Of course, ours was on the architectural review board of our city so that was a nice perk knowing we'd sail through that.

[crazydiamond]

We are trying to get an addition done right now, ours includes plumbing. I would say $150-250 per square foot would be a range. Lots of variables in costs as mentioned - crawlspace vs basement vs slab, is electrical or furnace sized to handle the addition, grade of materials desired, window types. I thought we are in a recession - but I still seem to have some challenges in getting the best responses and reasonable prices from contractors. I suppose it varies depending on where you live.

Don't forget permit fees from your town - they can add a bit. Also remember to keep 10-15% in contingency above what ever bid you get. Then of course- there are the issues (we are facing) in getting lending from the banks these days.

[Snow mom]

I thought we are in a recession - but I still seem to have some challenges in getting the best responses and reasonable prices from contractors. I suppose it varies depending on where you live.



Just a little insight on this from a contractor I know: in a housing recession people tend to stay put and remodel what they already have instead of dealing with selling and buying. I was surprised too when he said the housing recession wasn't affecting his business much, especially since when we moved here this was a huge flippers market.

[DebbieJ]

Another point to keep in mind--how will the remodel affect the value of your home? You don't want to over-improve and then be the most expensive house on the block.

[EQ_Bo_07]

Thanks everyone! The info is really helpful.

[galvjen]

We went through the exercise of pricing a house addition versus buy a larger home nearby about a year ago. The cost of a pre-existing, larger home was basically $10K more and fixed many things that an addition of 2 bedrooms and 1 bath would not have addressed (small kitchen, for example).

Bottom line, we quickly eliminated the home addition idea when we got 2 bids and did some comparisions with existing, larger homes in the area.

[HIU8]

Not an addition, but to finish our basement we were quoted (with just 2 contractors) $22,000 and $50,000. The higher one included redoing our staircase (jackhammering it up and making it to code). We don't have $$ to do the basement, so if we do it, it will be a do-it-yourself project (hopefully we can do it for closer to $15,000. We thought about putting an addition on our house as opposed to moving, but we would price ourselves out of the neighborhood. Several other families have additions and have tried to sell, but could get no where near the new value of their home.