Pls help me estimate gut reno cost!
Hello i am hoping someone in the Brownstoner community can help me estimate what the cost would be to renovate an apartment i am thinking about buying. it’s a 1000SF condo that is in a nice 8-unit limetone apartment building but the apartment itself would need basically a gut renovation. it would need upgraded electric…
Hello
i am hoping someone in the Brownstoner community can help me estimate what the cost would be to renovate an apartment i am thinking about buying. it’s a 1000SF condo that is in a nice 8-unit limetone apartment building but the apartment itself would need basically a gut renovation.
it would need upgraded electric (currently, the outlets are all surface mounted and connected with exposed conduit), new kitchen, new bathroom, refinish floors, paint/repair walls/ceilings and so forth. the good news is that nothing, at first glance anyway, seems to be broken or damaged — everything seems to be in place, just in need of radical renovation. we might also need to move a couple walls. i do not know the state of the plumbing, but like i say – nothing is disastrously damaged, so i don’t think there’s been huge plumbing problems or water damage.
do any of you have an estimate of what this should cost? i’m thinking $60-80/SF, but i’d love a confirmation on that from someone who knows what they’re talking about…
THANKS!
– john
Obviously the number is somewhere in the middle. If you budget $60k for the job, you will probably spend 20% over that because as you look at finishes – this is where the money is really spent – you will see items you didn’t know existed yet liked for your apartment.
You need to budget for an architect to file the work. This will certainly be required. My guess is that you will be quoted somewhere in the neighborhood of $8 – $10k. (This would be for minimal input from said architect – drawings, filing and sign-off) Anything other than that, variace for example or change in occupancy, and you will pay more
Budget more and then look for areas to save such as doing the demolition yourself. Paint yourself. Maybe even hang the kitchen cabinets and install all of the plumbing and light fixtures yourself. The more you can do, the more you will save. Also, don’t ask a contractor to include something and then decide to do it yourself. You will never get credited back the full value of the work.
You can do this for much less than everyone is saying, I’ll go so far as to say you can do it for less than your estimates if you’d like.
You said the walls need some repair and painting, you said you need to refinish the floors. This is much different than gutting everything down to the studs and rafters and rebuilding from scratch.
You can have new wiring run for a few grand assuming that the service to the unit is in good shape. It will be a few grand more if you need to run new lines up from the basement.
You can redo a bathroom nicely on the low end for $5k. $10k will get you some nice upgrades. Same goes for the kitchen, not including appliances. Or you can spend $20k, $40k, $100k+ in the kitchen. You can but you don’t need to. As someone else mentioned, if you can get creative with your sourcing you can get some nice things for not too expensive. Go with stock cabinets for one, there are some nice ones out there. If you don’t need subzero appliances you can get a nice high end suite for under $5k.
Whenever I see these questions I think it’s important for people to understand the low end. I’m very confident that if you needed to you could do this renovation for $20k. It won’t be high end but it will be nice and it will be livable. From there you can go up as high as you want.
Hi, I posted at 11:35 and want to clarify based on the 11:51 post. I do agree you CAN lower your cost a lot if you’re willing to be flexible on materials and do work yourself. The area where I cannot see how you can get away cheaply is on the electric, plumbing and all the other things you must just sub out. When I got my place I simply did not intent to splash out and sweated every dollar. And still, somehow, ended up at about $100/sq. ft. I kept a detailed spreadsheet on expenditures and, as I said, the cost starts to spiral once you require skilled professionals. The thing that concerns me is that John, based on a walk through, seems to think it is a gut reno. Which, to me, means that once the walls are opened up (to redo the kitchen and such) there is likely to be a lot more.
Again…doesn’t mean he shouldn’t get it–just that he might want to be sure he gets it for the right price.
There are a lot of folks out here in BS land that think you can’t reno anything for less than $100/ft. For what it’s worth, they’re not always right.
Just depends on how aggressive you are and how much of the work you can do yourself.
I reno’d a 1K sq ft apartment for well under $50K, including debt service for six months. Did new floor in the bathroom, new tile on floor and two walls, new kitchen, including marble countertops, lotta paint stripping and refinished floors.
Did a good bit myself, sourced as much as I could from Craigslist, and was as creative as possible (the marble counters were reclaimed from a building that was redoing their stairwell, for example.)
My two cents.
Wow, CLUE, good thing you posted a comment – the original poster obviously needed to be shot down and you presumably have so much to offer given your helpful attitude. It’s people like you that make Brownstoner such an unmitigated pleasure to read.
John – I hate to do negative posts but I think your estimate is far too low. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy the place if you love it. You might just have to juggle the numbers and do the place up over time. A lot of us on here never would have thought we could have afforded the things we’ve pulled off.
Unless the place is flying off the shelf–why don’t you wait it out and see if you can keep negotiating the price down.
Good luck, whatever way you go.
John-
You are totally clueless. qew has it about right.
The cost depends on whether you go the GC route or become your own GC, what your timeline is for completion, how strict your building is, etc.
You could pay 50k total or you could pay 150k. It all depends.
$150/sq.ft. minimum for a decent job.