The total cost of a turnkey house
When you look at websites of pre-fabricated houses with prices, they quite often look surprisingly low and attractive. And when you go into detail, you find out that the price given is the minimum one can put on paper for “house only”. Then you need to add x, y, z with upgrades, finishes, transportation, plot preparation etc. and end up with a very different amount.
What should you consider when planning building a house and making cost calculations?*
*Please note that we speak about element/modular houses. On-site building and price offers often work differently. We write about the benefits of pre-fabricated and on-site houses here..
The Process
Most expensive potential “extras”
Energy
No electricity connection is most likely the most expensive extra as the cost of getting connected to the grid can be very high.
Land preparation
Dependent on the location, getting permissions, cutting frees, planning the ground, digging ponds can end up being quite expensive.
Upgrades
Wooden parquet instead of laminate, tempered glass instead of regular, larger terrace, better appliances, non-toxic paints etc, etc. And you end up with a considerable “extra”.
Transportation
Dependent on the distances, can become a considerable amount.
Water
Dependent on the location, getting drinking water can also be a considerable extra cost. Also, building water access locations for the fire department.
Demolition
This rarely happens, but if there is an old house that requires demolition, it’s surprisingly expensive.
What to keep in mind with non-direct costs
Pay-back period
This is time consuming and certainly not 100% accurate, but should be done and it does help with decision making. We wrote about the pay-back period calculation methods in this article.
Maintenance cost
Strongly related to the pay back period and not easy to calculate.
The overall logic is that every material and appliance has a life span and the quality of it determines when you would need to replace it/refurbish it.
Extra works
A house usually doesn’t include lights, plumbing, installation of appliances (e.g. TV, oven, fridge etc). Make sure that you know what is included.