Cost to Finish a Roughed in Townhome

[calphi27]

Found a townhome that needs paint, floors, fixtures, kitchen, and 2.5 baths done. Walls have drywall and texture. Electrical and HVAC is already there. It is a three story with a rooftop patio. What would a ballpark cost per sqft or total be on this?

Don't want to go high end, but about medium. Looks nice but doesn't cost a lot. Probably granite countertops. 1st floor would be tiled, 2nd wood, and 3rd carpet. The home is about 2,000 sqft.

The finished units are going for $500k, and this one is $400k asking, so I would offer $370k.

 

[AJP]

Well I am just finishing a cottage ... want it to be reasonably nice and year round ... so some recent costs that come to mind are $14k for the kitchen (plywood and solid wood) with "Wilsonart" (like corian) counters (eg basically figure a $1000/running foot for a good kitchen) plus about $400 for decent knobs and pulls. The plumbing was roughed in before .. so far labour to finish the plumbing (including running under floor pex and installing manifolds, pumps and wall mounted electric boiler) undermount sinks, taps,two toilets , hooking up water tanks (hot water and presure tank for the well) has run about $7800 with some material (eg copper fittings and an expansion tank for the hydronic) 1 shower snd two tubs were already in before this cost; I figure another 2500 will finish the plumbing (including installing fixtures and connecting the bidet) These costs do not include the fixtures btw. Do you need doors? if so go with soundproof as they give almost a fire rated protection and help to keep rooms quiet. I dont remember right now the cost for the doors, hardware and installation

Appliances are fairly easy - I bought the fridge, stove and dishwasher from Sears at an ok package price. Not sure if I would buy from Sears again though. Looks like my stove was a "scratch and dent" which had to go back ... now that I have unpackaged the fridge (a couple of months after delivery) the fridge has obviously been retouched and the freezer light cover is buggered.

Don't forget back splash for the counters, a reasonable stove fan, adequate ventilation for the bathrooms...a chair rail in the dining room etc is a nice touch and should be done now. closet doors and hardware etc etc

I found some not bad engineered hardwood at Home depot for the upstairs and shopped around for (Porcelanosa) tile for the main floor. If you go with tile remember you need a pretty good subfloor ... added cost. Also investigate a better quality (harder) porcelain. Anyway ... that will help to kick it off.

BTW .. will you be the contractor or will you have some one else sub it out? If you will manage the trades ... don't forget to cost in your time and frustration ... scheduling is a challenge. eg My Ventahood stove fan is still waiting for the tiler to finish the backsplash ....etc etc

 

[WarDamnEagle]

Found a townhome that needs paint, floors, fixtures, kitchen, and 2.5 baths done. Walls have drywall and texture. Electrical and HVAC is already there. It is a three story with a rooftop patio. What would a ballpark cost per sqft or total be on this?

Don't want to go high end, but about medium. Looks nice but doesn't cost a lot. Probably granite countertops. 1st floor would be tiled, 2nd wood, and 3rd carpet. The home is about 2,000 sqft.

The finished units are going for $500k, and this one is $400k asking, so I would offer $370k.

I think at this point you would be better off estimating each thing individually. You could probably spend anywhere between $10K and $100K on the kitchen depending on the cabinets, counters and appliances. That kind of variability makes a cost per square foot estimate of the whole unit a bit difficult to judge.

You could go into any flooring store and quickly get an idea of the installed cost per square foot for the tile and carpet. You could then go into a custom kitchen store and also get a pretty good idea of cabinets, appliances and countertops if you know the layout. The baths are a bit more difficult. The fixture prices are easy, just go by a plumbing supply but the labor is a bit more difficult.

I suppose you also need some lighting fixtures? Again, those run all over the map so you probably need some idea of what you want.

I don't think it would take more than a day or two of running around to get a pretty good idea of what it's going to cost.

 

[haystax]

I think you should start with a much lower offer maybe around $275-300K because there isn't a large pool of buyers willing to take on such a project in the first place. $100K goes pretty fast in the finish stages of kitchen, baths, and flooring. Are you going to live in the unit yourself or rent? Hire work or DIY? Can you get financed for an unfinished unit? What is the current ownership status?

Cost/sq. ft is a terrible way to estimate a house, basically you have all the things in place that skew the $/ft down, and all you have left are the high dollar items that depend entirely on personal taste and tend to creep up rather than down once you start.

 

[beaufort-fj60]

unfinished should be worth about $45/sqft.... which is about $90,000. Even if the cost of materials in that area are $100/sqft that is only $200k. But that is if everything is perfect and passed local code inspections. You better call the local county building codes dept. and ask what the deal is on the house.

$400k for 2000sqft is $200/sqft.... which is what you would pay for a medium nice grade finished house. You are getting overtly blatantly butt raped at $400k for a unfinished townhouse. Your list of items that need to be finished are the expensive items. The foundation, frame, sheetrock, rough in on plumb and elec.... on a 2000sqft house are not worth $400k. You must be paying $300k for the land. I'd look into what the builder paid for the lot and add $90k.

 

[AJP]

In downtown Toronto you can pay $1.2m for a 1000 sq ft condo ... with very crappy finishing ....yeah they do throw in a few superficial items to make it "appear" high end but overall not real quality.... then you are saddled with big condo fees .... so prices tend to be all over the map and driven by the classic "location, location, location".

So your $500k may be a real deal ....but it would be prudent to offer as low as possible cause there are always surprises when you start on the finishing .... plus you need to make sure you are getting "wholesale" prices when you start a project of this size..... for sure the builder does.

 

[PAToyota]

I'm with the others. If finished ones are going for $500K, they're making more profit on the unfinished one if you give them $350K to $400K... By the time you're done with materials and labor costs (even if it is your own labor) you're going to be over that $500K mark.