When you give a price per square foot on building a new house does that include the basement?

Q:

When you give a price per square foot on building a new house does that include the basement?

A:

When we give you a price to build your new house we do not price the house per square foot. We give you a total price to build the house. For example if you had a 3000 sqft house and we quoted you a figure like $600,000 to build it, then that would mean that I would be charging $200 a sqft.

When a home builder or real estate agent tells you the square footage of a home it never includes the basement. So in the price for your home at $600,000 that would include the basement as well.

So to put that in perspective if your 3000 sq ft house has a basement that has 1000 sq ft and it was finished then you would have a house that has 4000 square feet of livable space. If you were to calculate the amount of livable square footage compared to the price of the home it would be $150 a sqft for the livable square footage.

Any price that you get for a house will include whatever level of finish that you have speculated in the basement. The more finished square feet in your house the more that your house will cost.

This is the reason that I have always stated that you should only use a contractor that will give you a detailed quote that explains what you are getting in your home for the quoted price.

Thanks for your question,

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.