Ballpark Price for extension (how much, houses, neighborhood)
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I have a ranch in massapequa and was curious what a ballpark price may be for a 530 sq foot extension off the back of my ranch.
I saw somewhere that it was about 150-200 a sq foot, so 80k to 105k. that sound about right?
so figure 105k..
add a half bath +15k?
add a 25' long porch on front of house +15k
add brickwork to front of house siding +5k
vaulted ceilings in most of extension +3k
sliding doors +2500
built ins for den +10k
change around look of front of house , add peaks etc +15k?
new garage door +2k
172,500?
is that a decent ballpark or am I way off on some of these numbers?
No one can even write a proper estimate for that without a set of plans to work from... Start with the Architect.
Architects charge whereas eager contractors don't for estimates. Sure it's not going to be 100% accurate but they have enough experience and billed out enough to know what kind of improvement costs how much and you can make decisions based on that. They also have more patience than an architect since they want your business. Architects just want to be in and out in comparison. Get the architect after you've made the fork-in-the-road decisions.
I have a ranch in massapequa and was curious what a ballpark price may be for a 530 sq foot extension off the back of my ranch.
I saw somewhere that it was about 150-200 a sq foot, so 80k to 105k. that sound about right?
so figure 105k..
add a half bath +15k?
add a 25' long porch on front of house +15k
add brickwork to front of house siding +5k
vaulted ceilings in most of extension +3k
sliding doors +2500
built ins for den +10k
change around look of front of house , add peaks etc +15k?
new garage door +2k
172,500?
is that a decent ballpark or am I way off on some of these numbers?
Some of your figures seems kind of High, the half a bath could be drasticly lower (6000), the peaks also you get a better price. however its good to over estimate. also if you wasn't doing the porch you just might be able to get away with doing this without permits, however being that its in the front of the house you will have no choice. buy all your own material and have a field day in the back of your house lol(50,000).
What exactly is a variance? an application to change the purpose of the home or something like that?
so if going from 1 family home to a 2 family? or if i wanted to put up a 4 story house, or do something out of the norm. I didnt think adding basically a deck to the front of my house would need one, but whatever, just more paperwork and time i guess.
The front of a house needs to be at least a certain minimum distance (called the 'setback') from the front, rear, and side property lines. If you add something to the footprint of your house (like a porch or extension) that would result in it encroaching into that minimum setback, you would need to get a variance before you could get a permit to do whatever it is.
For example suppose your front setback is 40 feet for your lot/neighborhood. And the front plane of your existing home is 40 feet back from that frontage line already. If you want to add a front porch that is, say, 5 feet deep (thereby making the front of your house only 35 feet back from the front property line) you would need to apply for a variance.
When you apply for a variance the Town will notify every neighbor whose property touches yours, typically the houses on both sides and the back, that you have applied for a variance and that the hearing for the variance will be held on such and such a day. If any of your neighbors decides they don't want you to add the porch, they can come to the meeting and make their objection known, and show the reason for their objection. If the Town considers their objection reasonable, they will deny you the variance.
Usually a neighbor's objection is due to something like a homeowner wanting to extend their house sideways into the side setback, which would bring the new structure closer to the shared property line than the neighbor is willing to tolerate.
A friend of mine wanted to make their garage deeper, so that they could store their jetskis in it, but could only go forward, not back. So they had to get a variance for the extra 8 feet that the new garage front would have encroached into the front setback. One of their nitpicky neighbors objected initially, at the hearing, but my friend's husband threw some money at the problem neighbor afterward and they withdrew their objection, LOL
A variance is also for the side of the house if you place a new structure there. For us, we needed one even though the CAC unit was already there and we put a new one in. I suppose either there wasn't one for the old unit or there have been new restrictions on objects' distance abutting your neighbor. Same goes for a 2nd floor if you attempt to match your 1st floor's width. The new 2nd floor must abide by the same distance to the property line even if the 1st floor doesn't (grandfathered in).
Is a variance a problem to get, or basically just alot of hoops and time?
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