Your contract for construction should establish the scope of work and how the GC is to be compensated. What does it say?

Do you have a contract?
Have you started construction?

For what it's worth, I had my sights on a builder/architect that had great visual concepts. I made an appointment for 5 pm and told him we would be spending "hours" "speccing" the proposed house. I provided him a typed sheet that defined EVERYTHING and some rough drawings by me. We went over it line by line and finished at 9:30 pm. I paid him upfront for full drawings (credited back after construction). Even with that CYA he managed to slip in some MDF, which at the time I had never even heard of!!

Are you negotiating with one builder for a Fixed Price contract and have not signed anything yet?

If so, ask the builder for a written total price and a list of what it includes and the documents he used with dates (drawings, specifications, correspondence and meeting notes, etc.) If the price is too high you should reduce the scope of the work or bid with other builders.

First of all, read your contract. If you've already signed one, then it should list the price and everything else.

Second, 45K for brick is ridiculous. We had a $4500 allowance for the brick itself (actually spent $4300 -- get King-size Acme brick). The labor was $8000.

For the dormers, $12K is probably about right.

For the stairs, $7K seems a bit excessive. Our builder threw a fit when we refused to pay an extra $1100 for the stairs in our house. He built them the way we wanted, THEN said it was going to cost extra. We still haven't paid him for that. And they are stained oak treads, 42" wide, 17 steps.

Good luck!

ditto on the brick....that is waaaayyy too high! In this area it runs around $6.50-7.50sf, materials and labor. Also, it seems very high for the dormers. Framers don't charge extra for those unless it is verrrrry fancy. The wood to build wouldn't be over a few hundred for each. Window cost?....$500/ea? A few hundred more for shingles,ea.

If you are not comfortable with the builder, move on and find a new builder. If you have questions about his business practices now, it will only get worse as the build progresses. With a cost plus contract, which seems to be what you are considering, the only things that protect you are the builder's ethics and sound business management practices.

I hope that folks reading this who haven't bought land yet pick up on the problem of selecting a builder when the development company restricts the lot owner's choice to an approved builder. It practically guarantees a more expensive build. The laws of supply and demand work here too.

If you want advice you must at least reveal what kind of contract you have. Your comments suggest that you do not understand the importance of that information and I suspect that is the cause of your frustration.

I agree with macv. Do you have a fixed-price contract or a cost-plus contract?

I can't comment on the brick, but $12k for 2 dormers is very reasonable depending on the size of the dormers, the level of detail, etc. Same for the staircases.

Revealing the low bidder's price to a higher bidder (contractor's buddy) so he can match it is not ethical IMHO but if you don't intend to ever bid again with the low bidder, you can get away with it.

This is why many professional suppliers, especially those in a position to likely be the legitimate low bidder, won't bid to a homeowner who is likely to be "shopping the job" and your GC might not want to have his name associated with that practice.

Good luck with the project.

macv:
You bring up a good point and one in which we had not considered. It is not fair to allow the higher bidder an opportunity to match the lowest bidder but mind you it was the builder and not us who asked if we would be willing to allow his "preferred supplier" an opportunity to match. We were/are not "shopping the job", nor were we looking for the lowest bidder but merely trying to get legitimate cost estimates. We are not just the "homeowners" but the ones who risk the bad consequence of cheap, subpar material and poor workmanship-not to mention the final amount of interest we must pay if there is a delay in the build. I failed to mention that we asked the builder for a list of his suppliers and subs but he never provided them which is one of the reasons we opted to go this route. We actually found the brick and lumber supplier we chose to be the mid-ranged and we chose only after talking to other homeowners, visiting several construction sites, open houses, model homes, and driving all over VA in order to narrow down what we wanted on and in our home. We are leaning toward one particular brick supplier because they were the ones who had the brick we had been searching forÂwhich is the second reason we wanted to look around-so we would not be limited by the builders "preferred suppliers" stock. We understand and did not want to subject the builder to subs he had never worked with nor would he have agreed to that but we compromised and sought out various subs we met at constructions sites and asked our builder if he was familiar with them and he had worked with mostÂand this only pertained to the masonry work and he will decide the subs he hires not us but we do know the average cost of labor and that was the point. The builder already has expense accounts at the suppliers of the brick, so it did not pose a problem for him at all Thanks for giving us a different perspectiveÂI actually think it is worth mentioning to our builder because we did not have the fact that we will give his "preferred supplier" and opportunity to match in the contract, only the part about us shopping around for the brick, lumber and cabinets.

Revealing a bidder's price to another bidder is the definition of "shopping" a job. There is no law against it but if the bidders think you will do that they are unlikely to bid. Getting a reputation for doing that limits a contractor's ability to get the best price therefore the real pros don't play games. But why should your GC be concerned; an allowance represents your money, not his.

Your contractor should be providing the cost estimates and then buying out the work using his professional reputation to get the lowest prices from the best bidders not just his buddies.

Getting involved in buying materials for a construction project is like being put in a game where everyone knows how to play but you. The GC is likely to find a way to supplement his profit no matter how you write the contract.

So true-thanks!