How much per sq ft excluding water, road, electricity, septic and propane?

I'm building one right now. Just the barn/apartment comes to $85.00/square ft of living space. That is based upon 1,200sq feet and a 40x100 shop.

We have 4 overhead doors, 2 walkthrough doors all spray foam and 10' concrete "mow strip" all the way around.

We have a unique situation as our builder is building our barn AND home. I'm pretty sure he's pushing the barn across at minimal profit in order to build the home.

BrazosDog02 said:

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When I researched pricing, a home and barndo cost about the same if they were similarly equipped. I've not been proven wrong to date but I'd sure like to be.

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That was my experience too. I spoke with 4 different builders.

Thanks!

It should be obvious the cost for living space alone, in a barndo, will be significantly less, but when the cost of additional "shop" space is added in, it can equal out, depending upon size of both. However, if one were to just build a residence inside a metal building shell, the savings per square foot would likely approach 25 %, or even more.

Might want to cross post in Real Estate. Lots of discussion on these on the forum and there are some lenders if you want financing

We are currently in the process of building one, it's in the final stages of the architect hands then will move on to getting the inside bid out. We already have the outside shell ready to go.

Our credit union had no problem giving a loan to us, after several failed attempts at the bigger banks (not because we couldn't afford it) but because they just didn't care. Not only did it only take a week to get approved but by far the lowest interest rate among all the banks we dealt with.

Is the only real barndo cost benefit the tax savings?

Tax savings?

coyote68 said:

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Tax savings?

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I've heard the county can only access the structure from the outside. So a $50k metal building with a $150k interior living area is accessed as a $50k metal building.

I'm sure the the gov will figure a way around it. Probably start taxing based on your insurance policy on a property or something.

They don't have a clue about your insurance. But they can see power lines, A/C units, water infrastructure etc.

Edit and some know about the septic

I know but I could see something like that happening in the future.

Yes if the state changed disclosure laws.

For us, the reason we went "barndo" was different for most. We are building the barndo to live in on site while our custom home is being built. Upon completion of the custom home, the 2 bedroom "apartment " will become our home offices. I work from home and upon our move, the wife will also.

We chose this path so we can "go to work" then "go home". Even if it's only 15-20', the separation from work will be nice. Currently if something comes to mind or comes up, I'll run upstairs. With the separation, it will give me a good reason to deal with it in the morning.

The shop space for me was non negotiable as I need space for my projects and we were going to build it anyway so why not add an extra 1200 square feet for office space and a spare/canning kitchen/man room for game watching/ reloading.

It's not for everyone, but made sense for us.

Very good reason although most leave the living area for quest, family housing.

SteveBott said:

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They don't have a clue about your insurance. But they can see power lines, A/C units, water infrastructure etc.

Edit and some know about the septic

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Yes, in our county the septic design has to be submitted to the county with number of bedrooms and they can inspect the number of bedrooms. I'm not positive, but that may be in the state regs.

Why I said some. I'm not sure if the state allows counties to permit or requires it. Not my market

In our plans we have a 2bed 2 bath apartment, commercial kitchen and shop, the apartment will be home for us until our custom home is built. After that we will rent it out until our company becomes big enough to have office space. We are building a pole barn so that we have no interior load bearing walls to convert later on.