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February 24, 2009
Pricing for Townhouse Renovation?
Hi, we've been looking at some townhouses in Cobble Hill recently. I think I have a good sense of where the market is on pricing. But then I mentioned to a realtor friend that no matter what house we end up buying, it'll probably require a top-to-bottom renovation, given the condition of what we've looked at so far. She casually mentioned, "Oh, that'll run you about $400-$500 per square foot to do a nice job." My jaw dropped. Look, I can get my arms around the idea that the house is going to cost several million, but is it really true that I need to be thinking 150%-200% that amount to get something liveable? Some of the houses we've looked at are 25x45 feet over four floors - that would mean we'd end up spending over $2 million on renovation!
Comments
It really depends on what you define liveable to mean. Many people do things piecemeal and live in a portion of the building during renovations.
Posted by: corolla at February 23, 2009 3:57 PM
I have often heard on Brownstoner that $150 to $200 psft is what it takes for a complete gut reno. I am almost finished with one myself and would agree with those numbers.
However that doesn't include major exterior work.
Also, if your reno was a gut reno and then you planned to completely re-create the interiors in a historically correct fashion (plaster, woodwork, etc.) I could see it getting to that range.
Posted by: denton at February 23, 2009 4:05 PM
Why do people actually believe anything that comes out of the mouth of a realtor?
A range of $150-400 is certainly possible but the high end of that assumes worst case and highest end of everything!!!
Posted by: daveinbedstuy at February 23, 2009 4:08 PM
Having done only one reno, with a contractor who underbid and couldn't quite finish, I nonetheless think that number is quite high. That is a figure for a careful restoration job with high end finishes everywhere and a lot of carefully detailed restoration work and for small, focused, intense jobs. A whole house renovation, even if it is not a gut job, should run quite a bit less on a sq.ft. basis.
Posted by: slopefarm at February 23, 2009 4:21 PM
I'm in the midst of a renovation as well and agree with the numbers Denton posted.
Posted by: pmmtenement at February 23, 2009 4:22 PM
Sorry, but I don't buy it either. We gut renovated a 5,000 square foot house with historical details, plaster, shutters, doors, etc. in a very upscale way for significantly less than that. And we did it when the price of building materials were much higher than they are now. But, we did receive some outrageous bids from contractors, some for $2 million. You have to go line by line over the bid. For example, some people wanted to charge me $120,000 for a/c - I ended up paying $60,000. So you can see how a bid can be lowered if you know what it is you need done. Also, we kept architectural costs down by being very clear about what we wanted. It wasn't our first project, so that helped. Also, at the prices you are being quoted you would have to worry about over-improving a house in this market. I would never, ever, ever renovate a house for more than I could sell it for (actually, I would need to make a profit) the day it was finished. That isn't so easy in this market, so be careful.
Good luck
Posted by: homey at February 23, 2009 4:36 PM
Based on 10 or so Brooklyn projects over the last few years, and factoring in that you should get good pricing in this environment.
Including engineering/architecture/expediting/filing costs, you should work with $200 a foot. That's for a gut interior renovation, with very nice, but not crazy expensive finishes/appliances, etc, preserving detail where feasible.
If you're leaving the existing layout, costs would go down.
If you're doing any substantial structural work (removing large sections of bearing walls, etc.) add $20 a foot.
If you're redoing the building's exterior, add that on top too.
While most projects end up in this price range, we do sometimes find bidders coming back w/ pricing in the $400 a foot range....we don't ask them to bid the next project.
Posted by: jcarch at February 23, 2009 4:38 PM
I took a house that wasn't in the best shape and made it fairly nice (new floors, fixed up walls, replaced a few ceilings (with tin in some places), new facade, painted everywhere for about $40 sq/ft. If you want a new kitchen, add 25-50k, same for the bathroom. About 40% of that went toward redoing the facade and another 20% for new floors as just fixed costs, maybe 10% for a new boiler, so you can discount appropriately.
Best thing to do I think is to leave everything where it is and fix it up. Replacing stuff willy-nilly gets expensive fast and is really not necessary. Hire a handyman or two to basically live there (i.e. come for a month or two or three) and patch up the walls, skim coat if you need, do a bit of carpentry, replace things here and there, and you can get away with a "pseudo-gut" reno for substantially less. Adding new floors, nice lighting, and having a good painter fix up the walls as he paints is another plus.
You can save a lot of money by a) don't replace perfectly fine stuff (like tearing down walls and putting up drywall if you don't need to); b) don't hire a contractor! they eat up an additional 10-20% just to manage your project (and they can induce the dreaded "scope-crawl", which starts to cost you) and you can't vet the hourly price of every sub they have c) stretch it out, have just one or two guys come in at a time. this makes it easier to be your own GC and saves you money since you can direct people more efficiently
Posted by: justinm at February 23, 2009 5:20 PM
CobbleThrone, I'm curious. What is the condition of what you have been seeing? Are the mechanicals and structure sound, but the baths and kitchens need updating? Just wondering what you get in that market.
BTW, you can re-do a rental kitchen for surprisingly little. Like less than $10,000. My landlady paid only $2,000. It looks really nice, but the grout wasn't done properly and will have to be redone in a few years.
Posted by: mopar at February 23, 2009 6:36 PM
My IKEA kitchen was 10k, and a bath redo was the same, and my deck/garden about 20k, but I suspect Cobblethrone is higerh-end, judging from the width (25 footers are top of the line) size of the houses (4500 sq ft) (and maybe even his handle? ;)
Posted by: cmu at February 23, 2009 9:01 PM
Hello there,
In order to know how much exackly your renovation would cost, you would need to know what needs to be renovated.
You can certainly get it done for the lowest possible.
My husband and I just started to work in Brooklyn a year ago and are looking for people that need to renovate their homes, we are charging prices that are affordable.
If you find a home and need renovation and restoration we would be happy to help you with the whole process.
www.pratesplastering.web.officelive.com
Good luck!!
-Aida and Willian
Posted by: Aida008 at February 23, 2009 9:05 PM
300/sqft bought me a complete gut reno of 3500 sqft - all mechanicals, plumbing, complete demolition of all internal walls, preservation of whatever details were left, 4 high-end bathrooms & one kitchen, facade, zoned A/C, heating, facade redone, repointing, new roof, windows, floors, some new joists, staircase work. Made some errors in the process, could conceivably have done it for maybe 20% less at best.
Given the way it was cut up, preserving the position of the plumbing, mechanicals would have meant a really bad layout.
Posted by: guest4 at February 23, 2009 9:05 PM
Yes, I would say we did it for about 20% less. We did everything, including 2 kitchens and 6.5 baths (we have a ground floor rental) We didn't do the entire facade, but we did add a small room to the roof. We did not demolish all interior walls. but did everything else like above.
Posted by: homey at February 23, 2009 10:31 PM
Like everyone has said, it can be $150-$500 depending on level of finish and complexity of the project.
I know someone who spent almost $250,000 on a custom kitchen. But that involved removing the original rear bearing wall, putting in steel beams, handmade custom sized cabinets, marble counters, high end appliances, etc.
A nice custom Home Depot kitchen (better quality than IKEA) can run you $10k.
As they say, the devil's in the details...
Posted by: christopher at February 23, 2009 10:34 PM
Not to sound too self-interested, but this is really the kind of advice you should be getting from your architect. While I know the snarky comments will soon begin in response, a responsible architect will have gotten to know the client and his/her program, their budget, their taste, and can then use his/her experience to bear in predicting reasonable budgets for a given project. As you can gather from the previous posts, the fact is you can do a renovation on a shoestring or with millions of dollars. The choice is all yours, and an architect can help make it an informed choice.
Posted by: brooklyn architect at February 24, 2009 8:46 AM
As noted above, the range on cost/sf is dependent on what scope of work you really intend to pursue. I recommend to get some perspective taking a critical look at your priorities for the new home; what you must do, what you want to do, what you can do. It would also be useful to get some professional opinion on the house. Speak to an inspector, contractor, Architect and get some handle on the depth of potential work so you can make some informed decisions.
A couple people (contractors) with house renovation experience I've worked with on projects in the past you may want to contact are:
Joe Maldonado, J's Custom Contracting, 917.642.2137
John Bissell, JB Carpentry, 917.796.2030
Tell them George referred you.
Best of Luck.
Posted by: thinkaboutit at February 24, 2009 12:23 PM
Price point comfortability is key to it all.
Posted by: NYCBuilder at February 24, 2009 12:42 PM
$150 - $200 sounds about right. Unless you want gold faucets.
Posted by: load07 at February 24, 2009 5:43 PM
I did a lot looking when I was in the market for a new kitchen. I didn't chose either but I have never seen a kitchen in Home Depot that was better quality than IKEA.
Posted by: jfss at February 24, 2009 7:39 PM
load07: "gold faucets" will damage copper pipes. So you will need to put silver pipes.
Posted by: bobjohn at February 25, 2009 2:38 PM
I'm an architect and have completed close to a dozen renovations of townhouses and significant pre-war apartments. The price of the renovation depends on the quality and completeness of the renovation. Flat walls? New (safe) electrical system? New energy efficent HVAC system? New plumbing? Level floors? Insulation and sound proofing? Restore the plaster cornices? It all cost money. $400-$600 is a real price range. A house in Ohio cost $200 to build, you're building in New York, it is more expensive. Your townhouse is at least 100 years old - there is more wrong with it than you see at the Open House. An Ikea kitch in a $2 million dollar townhouse is joke that the next buyer isn't going to pay for - re-sale is king. Quality always sells.
My advice:
You get what you pay for - Hire a good architect, make your decisions while everything is being drawn and can be priced correctly by the bidding contractor. Changes made in the feild or delayed decisions cost twice as much.
Have the architect qualify the bids - "apples to apples" that spell out out absolutly everything. If the contractor doesn't give you a price for sound insulating the powder room that means he's fine with you listen to the toilet flush during Thanksgiving dinner. Be your own advocte ask as many quests as possible. Keep the architecture neutral/classic, the interior decoration can be personal and special.
Hire a qualified contractor that knows how to schedule the subs - timing is everything, I've seen so many renovations where the work was done out of sequence and has to be ripped out and redone.
The Architect will also determine that the work is being done correctly the first time and that you're not over paying the contractor for the work that is completed.
A great deal of my work is ripping out other people's half-ass renovations. Take on what you can handle - do the house in phases. Complete one project before you start another.
Make sure you have a contingency of 10% of the total cost of the work - you'll need it.
Posted by: FloatingWorld at February 25, 2009 4:35 PM
I'm an architect and have completed close to a dozen renovations of townhouses and significant pre-war apartments. The price of the renovation depends on the quality and completeness of the renovation. Flat walls? New (safe) electrical system? New energy efficent HVAC system? New plumbing? Level floors? Insulation and sound proofing? Restore the plaster cornices? It all cost money. $400-$600 is a real price range. A house in Ohio cost $200 to build, you're building in New York, it is more expensive. Your townhouse is at least 100 years old - there is more wrong with it than you see at the Open House. An Ikea kitch in a $2 million dollar townhouse is joke that the next buyer isn't going to pay for - re-sale is king. Quality always sells.
My advice:
You get what you pay for - Hire a good architect, make your decisions while everything is being drawn and can be priced correctly by the bidding contractor. Changes made in the feild or delayed decisions cost twice as much.
Have the architect qualify the bids - "apples to apples" that spell out out absolutly everything. If the contractor doesn't give you a price for sound insulating the powder room that means he's fine with you listen to the toilet flush during Thanksgiving dinner. Be your own advocte ask as many quests as possible. Keep the architecture neutral/classic, the interior decoration can be personal and special.
Hire a qualified contractor that knows how to schedule the subs - timing is everything, I've seen so many renovations where the work was done out of sequence and has to be ripped out and redone.
The Architect will also determine that the work is being done correctly the first time and that you're not over paying the contractor for the work that is completed.
A great deal of my work is ripping out other people's half-ass renovations. Take on what you can handle - do the house in phases. Complete one project before you start another.
Make sure you have a contingency of 10% of the total cost of the work - you'll need it.
Posted by: FloatingWorld at February 25, 2009 4:38 PM
As a contractor, I would agree with the advice to hire a good architect to help plan the project to your budget. That's essential for 95 percent of owners, those who do not have either the experience or wherewithal to manage it themselves, or who do not have an exceptional or personal relationship with the contractor to see them through the process. However, for all the flack contractor's get for "poor performance," just remember that there are unqualified or poor architects out there as well. A bad or inexperienced architect can just as easily lead to massive cost overruns, disputes, and dashed hopes as a lame contractor can. Choose your architect--and your contractor--with care.
Posted by: ThinkC at February 25, 2009 5:00 PM
I too am a contractor. Most of the stuff above is correct. You definaitely get what you pay for. We just finished a townhouse renovation on the UWS and it came out to $300/SF, new stoop and facade included. Very nice and high end. There is certainly economy of scale in a townhouse gut renovation. Changes are extremely expensive. Think about what you want before you take the leap. Planning is essential. You can get a lot from your architect and contractor if you are informed and involved.
You may also want to get a contractor to look at your potential properties with you.
If you are going to get an architect involved, get the best one you can. Find someone who knows how to work with contractors and knows construction. Some architects are great at drawing and don't understand how things get built. The architect and contractor are going to work together for a good period of time. The architect should act as your owner's representitive and should be able to negociate for you. If they are able to get along with your contractor, are well organized and turn things around in a timely manner, it will save you tons.
Some referrals:
Bill Watson, CastroWatson, wwatson@castrowatson.com
Brian Papa, MADE LLC, www.madenyc.com
Posted by: jthomas at February 25, 2009 5:42 PM
I can help you for $150- $250 sqft see what I finished at 30 west 126th street in NYC Harlem we charged $245.00 per sqft www.mtbgroupllc.com also see what we did at 302 washington ave.
Call anytime @ 646-895-0154
Geoffrey
Posted by: mtbgroup at February 26, 2009 2:33 AM
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