How much does it cost to add on or build around here? (renter, house)

[centralaustinite]

It might cost you less than $150 a sq foot but there are so many unknown variables (and so many will stay unknown until construction begins) that if that figure is just impossible for you (not even a stretch), you would be better off doing something else.

I have know professional contractors who have taken fairly large (2000 sq foot) Allandale houses and pushed out the back (with an engineer tying into the foundation to add about five feet in width across the back of the house) and then a total gut inside (new kitchen, new wiring, new HVAC, new baths, new drywall, trim, and re-framed the roof but otherwise kept the exterior walls and front and side footprint and were able to re-sell it with 2400 sq feet for under $450K. But that's a professional who can build and plan the cost savings in from the very beginning.

Oh, the key is that you have to get a very good price going in. I have a friend who just bought a house as a rental in that neighborhood, good shape but with foundation issues. She looked at houses for over a year, had a realtor on speed dial, knew a good deal when she saw one, had the contract pre-written before she even went inside. She got a great price but it takes real work. That's another reason why you have to figure out what you time is worth.

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by buffettjr

Hi Everyone,

I will be a first time home-owner. I'm considering buying a smaller house around Rosedale or Allandale and then either doing a tear-down rebuild or adding on to the original house. I've seen a lot of that going on in that area. I don't really like the newer prefab look which doesn't fit with the neighborhood IMHO, so I would likely keep the same stylings already in the neighborhood to try to preserve the character.

I realize the answer would be highly dependent on several variables, but I'm basically asking for ball-park figure since I have no idea whether building costs would be $50k or $250k.

Let's say I buy an 1100 sq ft. 2-2 in one of those neighborhoods and want to add on 1500sq ft and 2-1 more. how much could one expect to pay?

What if I buy a junker and tear it down, and then build something like a 4-3, 2700 sq ft home. How much would that cost (assuming I've already purchased the original lot/house)? What sort of time frame could I expect?

I don't have a specific lot or house purchased or in mind.

Thanks much for any help!

There is a great show called property ladder where people try to flip houses. They go into really good detail about the cost of changes and how much sweat equity the people put in.

You can buy a new house for about 100/sq ft excluding land with nice upgrades, so I would expect that is the cost to build new.

In areas like tarrytown where the price/sq ft is 250, a 150/sq ft renovation cost is still making you $

[buffettjr]

Sorry to bring this thing back from the living dead but I just wanted to thank you guys again for the info on this forum and to give you an update. It is almost exactly the one year anniversary of this thread and I'm happy to say I found the house i'm looking for. It is an old fixer upper in the Zilker neighborhood with almost the exact specs I mentioned in my first post, and I went ahead and bought it. I'll love living in it for a few years while I pay down debt and plan the eventual add on.

I did my homework with the city and balanced floor to roof ratios, impervious cover, restrictions on the distance to the end of the lot, etc and determined that I can do almost exactly what I said in my first post (take a 1,000 sq ft house to 2,500 sq ft. That will come some day, but for now I'm happy to be in such a great location. I've learned a lot about the process.

I can't believe I just stumbled onto this thread while searching for foundation info and caught it almost exactly a year later and right as I bought my new house!

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by buffettjr

I can't believe I just stumbled onto this thread while searching for foundation info and caught it almost exactly a year later and right as I bought my new house!

Thanks for the update!

[centralaustinite]

Congrats! I love your neighborhood. It should hold value and even appreciate.

Enjoy your house now and later when you add on.

ca

[buffettjr]

Land of the living dead with this thread, but I thought I'd just keep my updates/pleas for advice in one condensed thread

Just to update folks, I've had a fantastic time living my my home over the last year and a half. It has been a tremendous amount of work and at times extreme levels of stress, but it's allowed me to live in the perfect neighborhood for me where I otherwise may not have been able to get a foothold.

Since I moved in (late 2009) I've removed one of the front doors (there were two front doors next to each other), patched and painted, redid the roof (terrible job...that was my first and last roofing job!) and remodeled the kitchen in a big way.

I'm now thinking about adding on. I'm very limited in space because I'm on a smaller innercity lot. As I understand it, I get an extra 450 square feet to do a detached garage, so I think it makes sense to to it that way. My plan is to break the addition into two parts. In the first part, I build the detached garage and build a studio apartment above it. In the second part, I do the large two-story addition to the original home, building a large living room, with a master bedroom and second bedroom upstairs above the new living room.

Let's talk about this studio apartment. In my dreams, I am picturing a garage perhaps 24 x 24 which equals 576 square feet. This means the apartment above it would be 576 square feet. That seems reasonable for a studio. Above that I'd like to have a rooftop deck with perhaps an outdoor kitchen. The reason for this is that from this particular location there would be a nice view of the downtown skyline from the deck. As I understand the rules, this would stay with the vertical envelope I have, and as long as I do not put a permanent roof on this level I will be okay. I can have a retractable awning.

My reason for building this structure (and building it first) is that I believe I can rent this studio apartment out for a decent amount of money. I'm thinking it would be for short term events such as UT graduation, SXSW, and especially ACL (I am in the Zilker neighborhood, and the renter wold not even need a rental car). When it is not being rented out short-term, I would be able to use it as a guest room, and man cave. I'm hoping that if I put 20% down on construction costs, I will be able to cover much of the added cost of the structure with short term rental revenue (though this is not a necessity for me to manage it).

Does anyone have any thoughts on what I can expect for construction costs? I figure the garage will be a little cheaper because it is just a garage, but then I am adding a second and even partial third story. Is $100,000 doable or is that far too low?

[bostonlonghorn]

Just wanted to say I'm following your thread and I'm curious to see how it turns out. I'm looking to buy, considering the same area and hoping to rent out occasionally as well.

[10scoachrick]

Might as well contribute to the 'forever' thread...If you can find a way to make that garage 24 x 30, you will thank me later and folks will figure you are the smartest person they've ever met. Having room to park two cars AND be able to enter/exit the vehicles without moving the trash bin, bicycles and work table will be a dream come true. It also will allow the pervasive Texas truck to park inside the garage, brush bars and all! The extra size will accommodate cabinets, shelving, workbench, fridge, etc., etc. NOT to mention the extra man cave goodies you can put in the additional space. As I've said before, "If you're going to build a garage, build a GARAGE". It'll certainly set your home apart from the houses without a garage, a single bay garage or the tiny 2-bay garage that might hold a Fiat 500 and one small motorcycle.

Disclaimer: This is submitted by one of those horrible 'burb dwellers who has a three-car garage and wants MORE!

[buffettjr]

Originally Posted by 10scoachrick

Might as well contribute to the 'forever' thread...If you can find a way to make that garage 24 x 30, you will thank me later and folks will figure you are the smartest person they've ever met. Having room to park two cars AND be able to enter/exit the vehicles without moving the trash bin, bicycles and work table will be a dream come true. It also will allow the pervasive Texas truck to park inside the garage, brush bars and all! The extra size will accommodate cabinets, shelving, workbench, fridge, etc., etc. NOT to mention the extra man cave goodies you can put in the additional space. As I've said before, "If you're going to build a garage, build a GARAGE". It'll certainly set your home apart from the houses without a garage, a single bay garage or the tiny 2-bay garage that might hold a Fiat 500 and one small motorcycle.

Disclaimer: This is submitted by one of those horrible 'burb dwellers who has a three-car garage and wants MORE!

I'm one step ahead of you...have been on the garage forums doing research! The problem is that every square foot I add to my garage is two square feet I have to subtract from my house (garage and apartment on top) so that's a significant downside to building something larger than standard. Still weighing my options.

[10scoachrick]

Originally Posted by buffettjr

I'm one step ahead of you...have been on the garage forums doing research! The problem is that every square foot I add to my garage is two square feet I have to subtract from my house (garage and apartment on top) so that's a significant downside to building something larger than standard. Still weighing my options.

I understand and this is one reason I hate to hear costs expressed 'per square foot'; especially since adding length or width to a garage shouldn't cost anywhere near the 'standard' price per square foot(even the apt above shouldn't reflect the 'standard' cost per incremental square foot just to make it 6 feet 'deeper' or 'wider').

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