Construction costs

 What does a new-build house cost per m3 or per m2?

What are the average construction costs per cubic meter or per square meter? This is a question that lives with many people. Because everyone who is going to build new is looking for information about the house price or the construction costs. This search often focuses on key figures, such as the price per m3 or per m2. An endless search for the holy grail, because many people are fooled by those key figures. Clients who are working on the first ideas are seduced by the lowest key figures. The lower the price per m3, the better it seems. Unfortunately, these clients encounter themselves mercilessly at a later point in the construction process, especially when the contractor puts his contractor's budget on the table. The actual construction quote.

The end of appearances, with the contractor's budget the hard figures, are on the table. And trust us: there are no contractors who bring a bag of money. Just like in the supermarket, you just have to pay for everything you have in your basket. And if your building plans turn out to be too expensive, you will either have to cut back heavily or start over.

Construction costs and land costs are decisive

The construction costs and the land costs are for new construction by far the largest items of total expenditure. Land costs vary greatly per province, per city and even per street. The land or plot costs depend on the issue price of the municipality in which the plot is located. The construction costs concern the costs necessary to build the house. The construction costs include the costs for the following matters: structural work, finishing, plumbing, painting, installation and groundwork. The construction costs of a home are strongly influenced by the outline design of the house, the quality of the materials used and the presence of expensive elements such as bathrooms and tiling. Because of this, two identical-looking houses can differ enormously in price. The construction costs of the house, together with the land costs, supplemented by the additional costs, form the total cost, the foundation cost structure.

Methodologies to determine construction costs

Construction costs can be calculated exactly or determined by an estimate. The method you choose is strongly determined by the phase the project is in. There are various methods for calculating or estimating a building price.

The different methodologies explained

Price per m3 or per m2

The table above shows that a price per m3, or the construction costs per cubic meter as it is popularly called, deviates easily by 10-15%. Suppose the construction price is € 200,000, this will lead to a bandwidth of € 170,000 to € 230,000. The bandwidth of 10-15% indicates the uncertainty within which such a price will move. In addition, the price per m3 itself is uncertain. Should you assume € 300 per m3 or € 425 per m3? There is something to be said for both numbers. The first index is for a cheap construction method, the second for a better construction method (see table 2, Key numbers). That makes a big difference. Taking this difference and the bandwidth into account, the following picture emerges. For a house with a volume of 600 m3, the construction price actually varies between € 153,000 and € 263,250.Conclusion : working with the cubic meter price alone is too coarse. In itself there is nothing wrong with estimating the construction price based on cubic meter prices. As long as you start from real cubic meters. Below is an overview with key figures for the price per m3 and per m2.

Quickscan Construction costs

Before we go further into the user-friendly WoonWensTool, first a brief explanation of more traditional ways of calculating construction costs. As soon as a sketch design is available, QuickScan Construction costs can be made. QuickScan Construction Costs is an affordable way to make a detailed construction cost plan. The QuickScan Construction Costs is a product developed by its BouwConsult. Because plans are based, the reliability of these QuickScan Construction Costs is much greater than estimates based on cubic meters.

Contractor Budget

If you know what you want to build and you have reliable construction drawings plus a specification or technical description, you can ask a contractor to have a contractor's budget drawn up. You do this if you are quite far along the way, it is expensive for the contractor to make a serious contractor's budget. You will then receive a fully detailed calculation of the house. If you have requested a budget from several contractors by means of a tender, you will usually only see the final amount. Contractors do this for competitive reasons.

Control contractor budget

If you do have one or more contractor budgets, it is important to check them. To check contractor budgets, it is not enough to compare them and examine the price differences. That will never produce an objective result. A check of contractors' budgets requires a lot of knowledge and the availability of reference prices. Contractors' budgets are also very diverse, making a one-to-one comparison almost impossible. iTX BouwConsult uses two instruments for the control, the BasicScan Construction Costs and the DeepScan Construction Costs. The first analyzes the construction budget in outline, the DeepScan Construction Costs turns the contractor's budget inside out. If you only want a check on, for example, the architect's design, you do not go to the contractor,

WoonWensTool, quick insight into the construction price

We have not yet discussed the WoonWensTool from the table above. Precisely because you do not yet have access to a sketch design in the initial phase, the WoonWensTool is a godsend. The WoonWensTool does not work with a sketch design or construction plan, but with what you have in terms of housing requirements. With the WoonWensTool you can easily indicate what exactly your housing needs are. For example a garage with a car, two bedrooms, and a utility room. WoonWensTool makes it very easy for you. You do not have to specify the dimensions of rooms yourself, these are determined by the WoonWensTool on the basis of the furniture and utensils that occur in the rooms. The WoonWensTool calculates the construction costs per room using a smart algorithm. For example, bathrooms are more expensive in comparison to storage rooms. This approach leads to an accurate construction cost determination. So not an idiotic estimate based on the price per square meter or construction costs per cubic meter. And mind you, without having to have an extensive sketch plan.

Play with the WoonWensTool

The nice thing about the WoonWensTool is that you can experiment quietly. First try to realize all your housing requirements and see how the price relates to your available construction budget. If you come out too high, see what you are going to delete from your personal housing wishes first. Apparently, you cannot achieve all your dreams. You can adjust this until your construction budget is in line with your housing requirements.

With the Housing Wish Report to the contractor

If you have reached the point that your housing requirements are in line with your construction budget, you can request the free Housing Wish Report. In this Housing Desire Report, you will find a list of the living spaces plus surfaces that are needed in your home, plus a mood board of your future home.

You can go to the contractor with the WoonWensReport. Based on this Residential Desire Report, the contractor can determine which house you are looking for. The contractor can then make a targeted contractor quote that indicates exactly what your construction costs will be. The contractor now knows what your housing requirements are and what your maximum budget is. Handy and smart!