Look Before You Build

Hypothetical House Expand

Every house is unique, but to allow the tool to compare “apples to apples,” it calculates the fees/costs for your selected city or county based on a 1,600 square foot single family crawl space (no basement) home with a 400 square foot attached garage. In those cases where a permit or fee is based on an estimated value of home to be built, rather than square footage, the value used is $200,000. Your initial comparison shows the estimated fee categories and a subtotal – when you click the details button, it will list out/itemize the fee/cost details and provide contact information for the jurisdiction so you can contact them to calculate the cost of your specific project, if you wish to do so.

Coverage Area Expand

About this Tool Expand When thinking about building a new home, you no doubt think about how your choices will affect the final cost of the home – choices like which insulation you want, what kind of countertops to put in or whether you want the additional safety a storm shelter offers. Did you know, though, that there are some costs associated with where you choose to build your home – and these costs you incur before anyone ever hammers in the first nail.
It is important not to dismiss the impact of these costs on the overall price of your home – they can total up to thousands of dollars before the building even begins. In fact, the National Association of Home Builders recently completed a study that estimated on average, regulations imposed by government at all levels account for 25.0 percent of the final price of a new single-family home built for sale.

Regulations come in many forms and can be imposed by governments at different levels. At the local level, jurisdictions may charge permit, hook-up, and impact fees and establish development and construction standards that either directly increase costs to builders and developers, or cause delays that translate to higher costs. So, what are these fees/ costs in the cities and counties in our area? The LookB4UBuild Tool allows you to view and compare these costs/fees for incorporated cities and the 10 area counties in which they are located.

Hints on Using this Tool Expand

Use the dropdown menus below to compare costs/fees to build in area communities.

Utilizing the “search” option will reveal more information (eg. Greene will show the county and the cities in Greene County).

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Click on additional pages above to view.