two years ago we published a video for our viewers talking about the cost to build a
custom home in the greater toronto area a lot has changed in the last two years if you
haven't been buried under a rock you notice that the real estate market is actually blowing up
and fitting wars mean the original listing price is well unrealistic alarm bells are going off
in some ways this is the most dangerous uh most dangerous buildup of prices that i've
seen so if you haven't built and you're still thinking in building and you want to know what
the costs today are or what they look like you're going to want to watch this video
so when asked what does it cost to build a custom home
i have to pause and ask a couple questions and provide a little bit of education because we have
to set some reasonable expectations number one you want to break it up into four different categories
you have a production you have basically a starter custom home a mid kind of great custom loan
and then you have an ultra modern custom home all of these are going to vary substantially in price
example production home which is typically going to be that of a builder a subdivision
who's focused on basically quantity over quality
that might start off at around 150 to 200 a square foot where you're looking at a custom starter home
that's probably going to look at around 250 to maybe 300 a square foot and i'm going to give
you examples of what that looks like and also what are the differences the major differences
between these individual categories as you jump from one to the other then you have more what i
call a higher end custom home and generally right now you're not looking anything less than 350
and it might even go to somewhere around 500 550 per square foot anything over 550 600
is going to be more of an ultra high-end custom home and we've seen prices as over a thousand
square feet and things can get pretty ridiculous so that's number one is that which category
are you falling into number two when you're looking at costs are you looking at soft costs
hard costs or total cost including carrying costs and everything so we're going to talk
a little bit more about that as we go on and then number three are those types of finishes
that are not necessarily typical within the construction but might be extra features that
you add maybe it's a walk-up basement maybe you're doing a concrete pool in the back these
are all things that can have a substantial impact on the cost of construction outside
of the cost per square foot and the last thing is even though i said the greater toronto area
there's different areas and pockets that are much harder hotter than others where basically
you have the same amount of resources like trades and materials that you're competing with so that's
going to have a fluctuation on price so let's now get into each one of these areas and break it down
and give you something more visual so that you can actually have something tangible that you can sink
your teeth into number one so when we look at a production home as i mentioned quality over
quantity so what would you expect in a production number one look at a bedroom upstairs bedrooms are
typically carpet a single light fixture there's no crown molding sometimes you don't even have smooth
ceilings might be eight or ten ten feet door is a hollow door if i just look at the light just the
light the light in a builder like production home is typically a light fish no more than 15 when you
get into a starter custom home you're pretty much looking at somewhere in the neighborhood a couple
pot lights um an upgraded light fixture so at a bare bare minimum it's about 500 so let's move on
so when you look into now a starter custom hole let's look at the exterior the exterior
on a starter custom home to keep the cost down typically they use a lot of stuff maybe eighty to
ninety percent of that sometimes they've even seen a hundred percent of the house all done in stucco
well the cost of stucco is around eight to eleven dollars a square foot and the more mid kind of
mid-level custom home you're going to see things like basically a man-made stone maybe some port
and batten so that material typically is going to cost closer somewhere in the neighborhood around
20-25 dollars a square foot when you start going ultra modern now you're looking at things like
limestone maybe if it's modern you're going to have things like custom aluminum ac and panels
that stuff is anywhere from 35 to 60 dollars a square foot and up so you could see how the prices
change starting at eight dollars for stucco and going all the way over sixty dollars for
some of the other materials that's why there's such a range so i'll give you another example
because this is what i think really important if anything you take away is let's look at things
like the appliance package on a starter custom home you're probably looking at an appliance
package starting maybe with something like a kitchenaid or maybe even a gen air so your
appliance package might cost you 15 to 20 000. as you go to more to a higher end you're now looking
at melee a lot more appliances you're probably looking at maybe 55 000 so more than double
and then when you go into ultra high you're talking about premium appliances like like gag
no and then they're going to be more integrated maybe even like no hardware either way now
you're talking maybe 70 80 000 appliances so you can see how this jumps dramatically
the last point i'll make on this as well is no work millwork is a big deal when you're starting
in a custom home typically their millwork is going to include your kitchen and some of your vanities
when you start getting higher in custom homes you'll see no work throughout it could be features
that are inside of a foyer it could be instead of having like closets it's all custom millwork
integrated workstations and so forth so the millwork budget on a normal starter custom home
is probably for a 3 000 square foot home maybe 70 80 000 where you start getting to a mid custom
home probably closer to about 150 more than double high-end custom home i'll see people easily spend
400 500 600 000 just on building so you see these huge deltas and that's why the
cost of construction is so different so now let's talk about costs so when they say costs
everything from when you start putting the shovel into the ground it's your demolition
your excavation your foundations and building your house including the labor and all the materials
and the management to do so so that's going to be your hard costs but in addition to your hard cost
you're going to have your soft costs that has to do everything from any of the services so also
bringing like your architects your engineering drawings your permit applications sometimes
there's legal fees so all those other costs and then the other cost associated to is when you
it's going to be some of the other final finishing things so even when you're looking at things like
fencing window coverings are you doing automated blinds geez you could spend twenty thirty thousand
dollars easily just on some window covers and if you go super high-end and there's
a lot of drapery and high-end stuff you can be in hundreds of thousands just in
so the third topic is going to be finishes so i want you to think of somebody doing a starter
custom home they can pretty much do hardwood at maybe even purchase hardwood at three four
dollars a square foot have it installed for a dollar fifty because they're just nailing it down
however there's other hardwood that's out there that we've seen that customers are implementing
that's over twenty dollars a square foot and it could even go way beyond that but let's
just say twenty dollars a square foot plus when they install it they're gluing it down they're
adding a layer of cork adding glue and then nailing it so the installation is another four
so you're almost looking at like 25 a square foot compared to five that's five times the cost of
what it would start as a starter custom home so think about that on the finish
the other thing is a staircase a staircase is where there could be a huge delta within price
a standard staircase might cost you twenty twenty five thousand dollars
a higher end staircase that's either kind of done in open riser and steel and glass
could cost you 75 to 150 000 so those types of finishes will have a huge impact on price
the other thing is windows the type the brand that you go with and the type of material that you go
with i'll give an example 3 000 square foot home it's realistic that you would have a budget of 20
25 000 dollars for windows however if you're going to do something more of like a modern ultra custom
home you're probably going to go with aluminum windows triple glazing the windows are going to
go floor to ceiling so instead of spinning 25 000 be prepared to spend 150 175 and up so these are
the types of finishes that can have a huge impact on the cost and then back to the last point which
is some of the features the features example a lock-up basement a walk-up basement if it's done
and let's say it's more of a traditional house if you're using armor stone you could easily spend
30 to 50 maybe 60 thousand dollars on a walk-up so and that's going to be on top of your cost
of construction at a pool concrete right now the pool market's crazy so try to add a pool you'll
be lucky to get pulled down for sixty thousand dollars if it's vital you go concrete you're
looking over a hundred now finally the fourth and the fourth when i said in the start of the video i
actually referred to depends the area the demand for building but it's not only that the fourth
should also include the size of the house because i want you to take in consideration whether you're
building a 3 000 square foot home or 4 000 square foot you're likely you're gonna have one question
pretty much the same number of washrooms so once you increase that square footage generally
it just means that there's more flooring more drywall where the infrastructure cost doesn't
change too much in terms of the mechanical systems the number of appliances that you have
so the size will have an impact and should be and make it more cost effective to build as you
build a bigger home however let's talk about the the location so there are some markets that are
hotter than others and the other thing is trades because they're in such demand they don't want to
commute at very far distances so for example if you're building a cottage up north it's probably
going to cost you more than if you were building something where the majority of the trades are
living which is just outside of the gta so that will have an impact so take that into
consideration as you figure things out so guys all this information comes because we work with a
lot of clients who are in the process of building right now we have eight builds on the go this year
pretty much it's anywhere from eight to ten so we're able to basically work with them and always
get back this information to pass on to our other clients so they're able to use this to make good
informed decisions on what's best going to suit their requirements as they build their dream
so hopefully you guys found this video helpful until next