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June 29, 2008
Renovation Estimates Pre-purchase
Hello folks,
We are in the mist of negotiating to buy a brownstone and have a few questions.
1. Do any of you guys have recommendations for an engineer and or architect for a gut renovation? The place will need new everything.
2.Also is it acceptable to have multiple estimates on a job even before finalizing the purchase? Cost?
Any help will be greatly appreciated...we are new to this stuff. Thanks
Comments
Your best bet for an estimate is a contractor, not an architect or engineer. Any estimate you get before you can start pokin ginto walls is merely ballpark (and low). To get multiple estimates now, seller is going to have to give you a lot of access, far more than is customary. Do a walk through once with an architect and contractor and have them give you a ballpark figure. Add 50%. If that works for you, go for it.
Posted by: slopefarm at June 29, 2008 4:28 PM
Your best bet for an estimate is a contractor, not an architect or engineer. Any estimate you get before you can start pokin ginto walls is merely ballpark (and low). To get multiple estimates now, seller is going to have to give you a lot of access, far more than is customary. Do a walk through once with an architect and contractor and have them give you a ballpark figure. Add 50%. If that works for you, go for it.
Posted by: slopefarm at June 29, 2008 4:29 PM
Slopefarm is quite right. It is almost easier to wait until everything is removed (and even demo-ed) to get a good estimate. We decided (since we did a complete top to bottom gut renovation) to have 3 contractors bid the job, with the caveat that after we paid separately for demo, they could rebid. This was time consuming, but I think it had some advantages. Sometimes it is very difficult to get people to bid on jobs, and it takes much longer than you think. We felt badly about the two contractors who spent time and didn't get the job. But they were busy so no one was crushed. Another thing you can do is ask the seller to sign off on your filings as part of your contract. That way you can start the day you close. This is not uncommon, we did it, and it saved us some time. That being said, the seller did not really want to give us the type of access you need to do a good bid (you basically need to bring in all the subs at least once, and they are usually not all available on the same day.)
Good luck.
Posted by: homey at June 29, 2008 5:03 PM
The contractor we are currently using has an architect and engineer. I think they also do quotos for renovations. We are in the middle of a renovation with them and are very happy with them. They advertise on the banner: Allrenovation.
Posted by: hollander at June 30, 2008 11:34 AM
Thanks everyone and really appreciate the advice.
Homey that tip about seller signing off sounds great but we are dealing with a whole family so it may be difficult but will definitely give it a shot. Once again thanks a lot.
PS: Hollander I will check out Allrenovation...it may be a nice "one stop shopping kind a deal.
Posted by: pierre de taille at June 30, 2008 12:31 PM
we just had contractors give us estimates for gut renovations for 2 houses that we were making offers on and they ranged between $250 and $300 per square foot
Posted by: guest at June 30, 2008 3:48 PM
Give colonial concepts a call.
we did a full gut renovation of a brownstone on 495 16th.
we also rebuilt the cornice on 262 E 35th street.
refrences are available.
also, you may want to consider just going with a designer instead of an architect if there are no major structural changes. this will save you a ton of money, and we can suggest a few.
call with nay questions.
516.792.5772
http://colonialconceptscorp.com/
Posted by: guest at July 2, 2008 12:47 PM
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