Custom Home Costs in Nashville

Having your very own custom dream home built is the dream of many homeowners. It's an exciting venture and one that can be quite complex and difficult at times.

If you're considering it, the first question you should probably ask yourself is, "How much can we afford to spend?"

That's an important question to ask and have answered before you do too much dreaming about a 5 car garage and an Olympic-sized pool at your new home.

I have some clients are at this stage of the game so I called one of Nashville's top builders, Nashville Construction Company, and asked Sam Burgess about it.

Sam gave me some good 'rules of thumb' to at least help us have a ballpark idea of what the home might cost to build. First, he said that generally the home value comes out to about 4.5 times the value of the lot. That means that if you're looking at a $100,000 lot, then you'd probably expect to spend around $450,000 building a home on it.

That's somewhat helpful, but in my client's situation the lots aren't so expensive, but the neighborhood rules require that any home that is built must be 4000-8000 square feet. This size of home will cost more than $450k to be sure.

That's when Sam mentioned that we should expect to spend $175-185 per square foot for a custom home. This would include the upscale finishes, etc. that you'd expect in a custom home. Sometimes you can 'cheat' a little by having a portion of the home that is left unfinished like a basement or a bonus room. That way you can afford a larger home and finish that space off later when you've got the cash.

As I mentioned, this is just the very beginning of what can be a complex project. However, if you have realistic expectations on the front end, you will save yourself a lot of grief along the way!

If you're weighing the options and considering a custom built home, please give me a call.

-Peter

www.NashvilleCityHomes.com
REALTOR. City Home Specialist.