Buying A Home
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Is there a way to estimate remodel costs?
We're thinking we'd like to find a house that needs A LOT of work. I know there are many variables (cost of living, level of finishes, etc.), but is there a site that allows you to guesstimate remodel costs?
Re: Is there a way to estimate remodel costs?
Have you asked this on the Decorating and Renovation board yet? There are some crazy smart people there that know a lot and might be able to give you a better answer. I've seen lists of "average renovation costs" broken down by project, but they don't seem to account for the variables.
There are also some fun blogs out there that people use to document their renovations. The before and afters really make me want to find a fixer upper!
Considering the $$, time, RISK and effort at stake you REALLY need to hire someone with expertise to accompany you and give you real advice on money, time, etc.
There is more than $$$ to be thinking about here, there are codes, permits and so forth to worry about.
Good luck.
Costs for labor will depend alot on your location (or will you DIY?), quality of materials used (windows, doors, bath, kitchen, flooring - huge range in prices).
Do you have the cash in hand to pay for remodeling? Do you have the time and skill to DIY?
If you are going to buy - your inspector can let you know what needs to be done for safety reasons and a ball park estimate. Have contractors come and give estimates BEFORE you buy. Electricians, plumbers, carpenters are $$$ per hour!
If you are seriously interested in a particular house you can have a contractor come give a free estimate. We were looking at a potential rental property that had some basement cracks and foundation problems and our realtor met a company there for an estimate. The estimate was 2x the cost of the house so we passed
but they do come out and give estimates and then you can always increase them based on the quality of products you want or reduce them if you are going to DIY or demo yourself.
As a rough guess... make up a number and then at least double it
We were experienced DIY'ers and had a rough budget for what we would have to spend to do the things we needed to our current house (Kitchen gut and complete remodel, flooring throughtout the whole house, wood floors in the living/dining room) plus misc things like paint, lights, fan, etc. We ended up going about $10k over budget because we had to completely redo the plumbing and had to do more electric work than planned and things just cost us more because we didn't have a lot of time to shop around for great deals - we were on a very tight time crunch to get the floors/walls done before we moved in. Then we worked on the kitchen while we lived here and now we're drywalling over multiple layers of wallpaper that were put on plaster walls.