Construction Costs on 30a

The labor component of the equation is what is coming down. Labor costs in south Walton have been highly inflated over the past few years because of the demand. Demand slackened and now labor costs are becoming more competitive.

At one point the labor cost in the south part of the county was 3X the same labor cost north of the bay. Folks were charging what they could get away with and people were willing to pay for it.

Labor cost drops faster than material cost increases = overall construction cost comes down.

Maybe you haven't been buying material. I have paid 50+percent increase in drywall, 60+ percent increase in concrete products and 25+increase in wood products since the beginning of the year.

Pirate,

Where are you buying your materials?

A quick call to Couch Concrete has shown the cost of a cubic yard of 3000psi, line pump mix concrete at $111/cubic yard.

I paid $79/cubic yard for the same mix when I poured my house foundations in 1999.

That represents a 40% increase in the cost of concrete in the past 7 years.

I had a local crew ( Atlanta ) go stay at my house (1900s.f.) and paint it in 4 days in and out for 8k. I might recommend you try the same with a Tampa crew. 15k is ridiculous and 30k is laughable. I will come paint it myself in my pirate outfit for 20k. :rolling:

I paid $106 yd. for a sidewalk I just poured and paid $72 yd. for the same houses' foundation concrete 6 months earlier. Same company delivered the product. I am guessing I paid in the mid $50 in 1999.

I don't gain anything by sharing this Timmy, it's just a fact. 72 x 1.6 is 115 so I am $4 off and I apologize for that. I do this for a living so I assume it hurts me as much as anyone here.

The last 2 houses I sold at a loss as well FYI, both were more than 20 percent over budget.

By that time the "cheap worker bodies" will have migrated West to the NOLA area to do the painting there. What you'll have left are the "high priced" local workers with enough work to go around who will set the prices--and as they say in the biz--it will be a Seller's Market.

Pirate,

I didn't mean any offense by questioning your numbers, it just seemed like your earlier post was suggesting a 40% (or so) total increase in building materials cost in the past 6 months. I felt this deserved some clarification.

I think maybe we are talking past each other a bit in terms of timing, I don't doubt your overall costs from the past 6 months, believe me I have seen it first hand. What I am passing along is information, both from builders and owners, in the past few weeeks that are reporting a decrease in bids. As I mentioned earlier; one contractor reported a framing bid 60% of what he was paying a year ago. Time will tell what overall impact this will have on the final construction cost, I will keep everybody advised on my findings.

There are enough house built here that painters will continue to be busy repainting for the rest of their careers.

If your bid came in at only $15K, be thankful. I have friends who paid $30K for the exterior alone on their 2000sf home and the owner of the business sat in his wheelchair in the back yard, supervising (drinking Budweiser all day) and hitting on all the young ladies walking by in bikinis.

I will keep everybody advised as to the new pricing range when the complete numbers start to come in.....however this will take some time -it will be a few months to get the final construction costs on some ongoing projects.

They are correct on the prices in Watercolor. But, houses of the same quality are built in other areas for less money. Builders make a killing building in Watercolor. One thing you do have to consider are the strict regulations on building in there. I believe on there are certain hours you can work. This of course drags out the building time.

You've got to be kidding. 30k? No offense to your friends, but obviously they have too much money or too little time to shop around. As Pirate said, you could pay someone to drive into the area from Atlanta and paint for 1/4 of that price.

In Atlanta, I had my home's total exterior painted (larger than the one referenced), including deck railing and screen porch with railings, for less than 4k. I could have tossed in 2k and asked that crew to drive to South Walton and they would have done it in a heartbeat.