I'm a brick girl, through and through...but I suppose it depends on the style of your house. What did your architect draw for the elevation?

I am not a brick girl - even though I am building a brick house! That is why I painted it! Hardi and shingles didn't work with our ARB and the style of house I wanted - it turned my house into a farmhouse (which I would have loved but they hated).

There is some maintenance involved with Hardi though so you have to factor that into the cost.

Hardi and brick are priced pretty comparably here. So for us, it depended on the style of house. Hardi worked for our house style much better.

Well he originally planned the house in all brick. Then I changed it to a mix of hardi with brick water table.

He can change it back if I want him too. I need to see what the cost difference will be but I suspect it will be 15-20k extra. Not sure in this economy if I want to tack that cost to my house if it won't bring a higher resale.

We are having the same question in our re-build (due to a fire).

Our original house had a brick front and vinyl siding on the sides and back. We were interested in upgrading to brick all around, but the incremental cost (approx. $50K) is making it prohibitive. We will probably go with brick on the front again with Hardi on the backs and sides. We will also use the space for some additional insulation behind the Hardi (rigid foam board).

When bidding out our siding(Nichiha fiber cement)we had the most up charge on how and what the windows were trimmed out with. So using brick mold around windows with brick offset the cost of more elaborate Azek trim around windows with the fibercement boards.
We assumed going with FC was going to be less but the mason who is doing our stone work said it could have been a wash or pretty close due to trim costs. At least in my area.