I have been framing custom homes in the 5,000 to 7,000 sq. foot range along the front range of colorado for the last few years. The custom home market has slowed considerately so I’ve been bidding on smaller homes in the 3,000 to 4,000 sq. foot range. I am used to getting around $7-$11 a square foot for the custom homes with cut in roofs, stairs and never ending backout. Every bid I have put in on the smaller homes has been through the roof according to the builder. They are claiming Square footage prices are around $3 a square foot. I dont understand how that is possible for carpenters to make a decent living. Does $3 a square foot seam cheap to you? or am I crazy!
Jeremiah Mercier
Replies
It was 2-2.50/ft twenty years ago!
No wonder so many of them do cheap work.
I estimate more like 6-10, depending...
Keep your standards up, please.
Excellence is its own reward!
"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are." --Marcus Aurelius
I really hate to say it, but around here, southwest Idaho, $3.00 a square foot is average. The little starter slammers are getting $1.65 for houses that a 4 man crew frames in 2-1/2 to 3 days. Thats not sided, but exterior doors and windows installed. Bunches of them springing up. To be exact, thats Canyon County, just 20 minutes due west of Boise, the capital. Lots of growth because millions of out of staters are moving here and they can drive to the higher paying jobs in Boise. I'm not certain about starter home prices in Ada County, where Boise is. I have been framing custom homes in Canyon County and getting from $3.50 to $5.00 a square foot, sided with masonite. I never framed a house bigger than 4,000s.f. in the years I've been here, though. The problem, if you want to look at it like that, is the fact that there are a lot of minorities (spelled Mexicans) here who work for a lesser wage and the contractors naturally will go for the lower bid. The cost of living here is relatively low compared to a lot of the country, though. Natural gas and electricity are cheap and water is abundant. Framers in Boise or Ada County who frame big customs are faring slightly better than we are here in Canyon County. I really hate it that we residential carpenters can't do something to get the price scale elevated, but as long as people will work for less, they will get the jobs. I work for two different sets of contractors who are known for quality rather than quantity and they expect quality from their subs. Most of the time, they give me a set of prints and tell me to start the house. They know approximately what I pay my crew and what I'm going to charge them at the end of the job. They keep me working 12 months out of the year and I like that. When I'm not framing for either of them, I can usually get one of them to let me trim a house. So I'm not getting rich, but I'm getting by. I pretty much know how far I can push the price up before they are going to squawk, as they have in the past.
I forgot to ask, What part of Colorado are you from? I grew up in Woodland Park, back in the 60's and early 70's just west of C. Springs on hwy. 24. I helped frame the first 4 condo buildings at Copper Mtn. Junction during the same time span. Man, I miss that place! bob
J. M. I know that G.C,that said $3.00 a sq. isnt going to listen to anyone that says hey it was $2.50 twenty years ago so you just use it to fill in and keep going. A year ago I did a 1200sf house for 90 cents a sq. didnt do it any different than a top end house. When a realator makes more money on a house , you better be a grunt carpenter because you love it . I find it interesting if you look at a 4 man crew on a 3000 sf house and then estimate the time it takes to frame it times each man recieving "union" wages and benefits and then divide it by the houses sq. footage plus 15 per cent for operating costs .......well you get the idea. Yes your crazy and I'm crazy and we should have become bankers or jet pilots or .......
Let's bid the same thing. Frame only, facia and rakes. One house on a blind bid, tell how you figure sq ft, and how you upcharge for extras.
I searched an interesting home bid me
You game?
Hey Otrmeg thanks for the interest, fast bid for the house .on crawl $2.00sq ft 1st level , time and material on 2nd level and roof package.
You are so hired.
Take a close look at that plan.
Hey you got me feeling super stupid.
Gag!
Crazy doesn't half say it. I get about that for drawing the designs. You need to take some sales courses to sell yourself at your price instead of theirs..
Excellence is its own reward!
"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are." --Marcus Aurelius
Hey piffin gags not the word it's more like puke. I was attempting to to give worst case and what you do when you have to. This is not my standard operating procedure but when the man with the plan says this is what i'll give you waving " sales course's " in the man's face isn't going to do any good , what the market will bear is all your gonna get. I remember all to well the 70's when it hurt like hell to tell my guys "there's no work anywhere I've got to shut down, maybe we can get back together when the economy comes back" The last 10years has been a good run but there are a lot of people that came in that don't understand the take what you can get and use that as a base to try for something better, dont sit and wait because you think you should be worth more becaus that's what youve been getting. Geez I really love my work and would consider it an honor to work with any of you for any price just to see th look on your face at the end of the day , when you put your hand on the truck door and look back at the house. Remember those nights when you didn't think to much about money.
Yeah, I was there once too. My first winter in Colorado got kind of dry for work. I'd been laying cedars for $45/sq and went to texas to lay 'em for 13bucks for six miserable weeks. Three squares a day, hand nailed for 39 dollah. Now, I make that to show up and open the truck door.
Some memories are just plain scary.
So I went back to Colorado and learned new skills and started building on them and adding a rep. .
Excellence is its own reward!
"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are." --Marcus Aurelius
The number is $10 to $12 in these here Yew Nork Adirondack mountains.
What a beautiful place, them there Adirondack Mountains. "Don't take life too seriously, you are not getting out of it alive"
Jeremiah,
I live & work in the Denver area. Don't do much single family mostly townhomes & condos. Frame pays $3.80 to $4.20 a sq.ft that includes Drywall on party walls (including both sides of the trusses between units) pre rock tubs & stairs, backout set stairs etc. No doors or windows. This is the price the the framing contractor gets who does none of the work, he has his subs do the work who our getting maybe $2.80 to $3.20 a sq.ft. I used to work for a large single family home builder that paid about the same. This could explain why most of the framers that frame for companys like U.S. Homes, Richmond, Village, D.R. Horton , Pulte, (I could go on) Speak very little english. I used to frame & side in the early 90s made $2.20 a foot frame & $1.25 to side. Never could make ends meet at that price. Had Workers comp & insurance could have made more flipping burgers then framing for tract home & national builders. Not to slam the mexicans but I would like to know how many carry workers comp or insurance or pay taxs. Whitey that has the contract 1099s the framers at the end of the year to lower his tax burden. This is what keeps the prices low and has changed the language in the world of framing and other trades. This could also explain why there is such a shortage of english speaking people who enter the construction trades in this part of the country.Good Luck & I hope you find a large custom to frame so you don"t have to lower your standards!
Welcome to Michigan boys!
I have framed from 3.50 a foot ranch rakes 6/12 roof 1 bay.....I feel its too low my self but it was fill in. Usally I wont even install pannles for less than 4.5-5 a foot. Custom in Ann Arbor with siding start at 8 and go to 20. I'm all for keeping the prices up. I know a builded in austin that get it at 1.90 slab on grade and no one speakes english.That doesn't work for me I hope it doesn't for any of you either after all we need to keep that trade alive.... there are enough low ball hacks as it is. It's a shame we all get swqueezed so bad that the trade suffers isn't it?