Custom House Cost Depends on How Fancy You Want It

What will it cost to build a custom house? There’s no simple answer to this most-asked question.

Your costs will be determined by a variety of factors, most notably the price of your lot, which experts say can account for anywhere between 25% and 40% of your total expense, and the level of luxury you decide to give your new digs.

Other variables include building fees assessed by local governments, which can add at least 5% to the cost of a house, material costs and prevailing local wage scales for laborers and craft workers.

In the end, say experts from the National Assn. of Home Builders, you can expect to pay a minimum of between $55 to $90 per square foot to build a new home today. The figure, which does not include the price of the lot or landscaping costs, varies according to area.

In the Los Angeles region, the association’s research chief Gopal Ahluwalia says, the average minimum hovers in the $75 per-square-foot range. It is lower in the eastern and northern stretches of the basin and higher along the coastline.

The L.A. figure is roughly equal to that for Chicago and suburban New York. In San Francisco and New York City, the average minimum, Ahluwalia says, is nearly $90 per square foot, largely because higher labor costs and local fees. By comparison, the average minimum is $55 per square foot in Kansas City and St. Louis, $60 in Phoenix and $70 in Washington, D.C.

Is there a maximum?

Don’t be silly! Of course not.

Mike Ashley, a custom home builder in Hidden Hills is completing a nearly 9,000-square-foot house with a 3,000-square-foot guest “cottage” in that community, complete with an underground racquetball court, swimming pool, waterfall and spa, lavish marble flooring and other luxurious touches.

The cost? About $300 a square foot.