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My Garage Plans

Hints and tips on building a garage and buying garage plans.

Garage Building Cost Calculator Updated

My Garage Plans Staff
The garage building cost calculator has been updated again based on current market conditions and further information we got doing some additional research. For most situations you will actually find that the cost per square foot to build a garage has gone down, particularly if you are planning on having a contractor do some or all of the work for you. We still caution you that this is only a rough estimate because everyone's situation will be different. The only real way to get a cost is by getting an estimate from a contractor or by giving your material list to your local building supply store and having them give you a price. Don't forget when getting any estimate from any contractor it is a good idea to get a minimum of 3 bids. The lowest bid doesn't necessarily mean that is the one you should choose, make the decision based on who you feel most comfortable building your new garage for you.
 
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Garage Cost Calculator Update

My Garage Plans Staff

Garage Cost Calculator Update

There's nothing like a trip to the local building supply store to get an update on construction material prices for calculating your garage cost. So that's just what we did to see where the prices for garage construction material stand right now. With garage material list in hand, we grabbed prices for everything on the list with a few notable exceptions, but we were able to fill in the gaps with some prices we got off the internet.

In order to get to a reasonable garage building cost we made a few assumptions along the way including:
  • doing all the construction work yourself
  • very simple garage plans
  • buying the concrete but doing the finish work yourself
Everything we priced out to get the garage cost was done using the least expensive material we could find that fit the requirements. But the labor is all yours.

Armed with this information, we made some revisions to the garage cost calculator. What it did in fact was lower the baseline values so the estimated cost of building a garage actually dropped for the true garage do-it-yourselfer planning on doing 100% of the construction work. The upper end of the garage building cost calculator was adjusted to be close to the U.S. Government Census Bureau values for the cost of building a new home in the various regions of the country.

So give it (the garage cost calculator) a try and let us know how it matches up to your experience. Don't forget that it is just another tool to help you figure out your garage cost, but it is not a substitute for getting proposals from garage building contractors.
 
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Garage Cost - Garage Building Estimates

My Garage Plans Staff
Before you make your final decision on garage plans, you probably want to have an idea of what the garage cost is to build that new garage. This is a common problem for anyone wanting to erect a new garage building. The question about what your garage cost will be is influenced by a number of factors, both labor and material driven.

There are a variety of things to consider when trying to determine your cost to build a garage:
  • your cost of living
  • how complex the garage plans are you want
  • are you paying a garage building contractor or doing it yourself
  • what size garage plans you have selected
  • is there an apartment or loft included in your garage plans
Additionally, garage building material prices can change quite a bit depending on seasonal influences and other variables (think the foreign created dry wall mess in Florida a few years ago). How complex are the garage plans you want? There's a significant difference in building a basic single story one car garage with no apartment or loft and building a 4 car garage with a 2 bedroom apartment. In the simple one car garage plans there aren't any fixtures or utility hookups required but for the 4 car apartment garage plans there can be some expensive fixtures plus finishing materials required; toilets, sinks, light fixtures, trim, carpeting, etc. A one size fits all garage building cost estimator is not an easy thing to put together and maintain an accurate value of garage cost for all situations.

Garage building contractors charge differently in nearly every region of the country. Even within the regions the costs can vary dramatically between rural and urban areas and even between garage builders. The research we did on the cost of building a garage did not turn up any reliable values in the U.S. Government statistics, but there is fairly recent data for the cost of building a new home in the different regions of the U.S. Comparing the home building cost data and assuming it is valid for garage cost data isn't perfect, but it at least gives some relative credibility to what we are looking at. The data we used is from the U.S. Census Bureau for home building cost through 2008. In 2008 the average cost per square foot to build a new home was:
  • South $79.64
  • Midwest $87.99
  • Northeast $117.91
  • West $111.72
The cost of building is lowest in the South so that will be the baseline for our discussion. Compared to the cost of building in the South:
  • the Midwest is 10% more expensive
  • the Northeast is 48% more expensive
  • the West is 40% more expensive
It's pretty easy to see that the region you live in will have a dramatic effect on your garage cost, but that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. As an example, the cost to build a $20,000 garage in the South would cost you $29,600 in the Northeast. The difference could be even more pronounced if you are building a garage in a rural area versus a city.

Looking at the other data we found on garage cost, the consensus seems to be that a garage should cost somewhere between $34 and $48 per square foot to build. One of the most widely sited values is $35 - $45 per square foot given originally on the Ask The Builder website, but that data is over 10 years old. A lot has changed in the last 10 years. According to the U.S. Government Census data - in the 45 years from 1965-2009 - home building price increases have outpaced the Consumer Price Index in 26 of those years. For the last 10 years here are the housing prices versus the inflation numbers:
Year
Housing Price
Index Increase
Consumer
Price Index
Difference
2000 4.40% 3.4% 29.4%
2001 5.00% 1.6% 212.5%
2002 2.50% 2.4% 4.2%
2003 5.10% 1.9% 168.4%
2004 8.40% 3.3% 154.5%
2005 7.40% 3.4% 117.6%
2006 6.00% 2.5% 140.0%
2007 0.90% 4.1% -78.0%
2008 -3.50% 0.1% -3600.0%
2009 -5.00% 2.7% -285.2%

In the construction industry it is either feast or famine. In the building boom years of the middle 2000's housing prices easily beat the CPI, but when the housing market crashed in 2007-2008 the Housing Price Index fell dramatically. The cost per square foot to build a home isn't going to be in perfect alignment with the Housing Price Index, and the cost to build a detached garage is not going to be in perfect alignment with the Housing Price Index, but together it gives an overall sense of the relative 'Garage Price Index' (that's a term we just made up).

Here we assume the $34 - $48 per square foot garage cost is a garage without living quarters, apartments, lofts work shops, etc, just your basic garage plans. If your garage plans include any of those items then it is safe to say the garage cost per square foot is going to get close to the cost per square foot to build a house. The more your garage plans look like a house, the closer the garage building cost per square foot will be to that of a house. We also assume in these numbers that a building contractor is doing the garage construction for you. You can save quite a bit on your garage cost if are making this a do-it-yourself (diy) garage project.

Conclusion - If you consider the Southern region of the U.S. as having the the lowest garage building cost, the garage cost to have a contractor put up a garage for you should be between $34/square foot for basic garage plans and $80/square foot for garage plans with an apartment and all of the amenities. At the higher end of the scale is the Northeast, where it should cost you somewhere between $48/square foot and $118/square foot to build a garage. The only way to know for sure is to get real quotes from garage builders, but we hope this information gives you some idea. Always get a minimum of 3 quotes before starting your garage building project! In a future article we'll talk about the impact materials have on the garage cost.

You can use the My Garage Plans garage building cost estimator to give you a rough idea of your garage building cost. The numbers won't be 100% accurate, but if you have a grasp of the variables such as the cost of living in your area, it will at least give you some idea of the price range for your garage building cost.
 
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