RSMeans seems to be one of the most trusted sources when it comes to cost estimating. I’ve used the data for some preliminary estimating and have had a reasonable experience. I do wonder how well their labor numbers hold up (after applying their regional adjustments) in some markets with skilled labor shortages. What have your experiences been like?
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Years ago I worked in a large commercial construction company and their “bible” was the National Building Cost manual. This was fairly useful and accurate, but keep in mind the market was large construction projects and not homeowner construction projects.
Data such as RSMeans can give you a general idea of costs, but market conditions are lagged in what is currently going on with labor, subcontractors, and of late, lumber prices. Case in point would be this article … http://nahbnow.com/2018/04/rising-lumber-prices-hit-home/
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In the SF Bay Area is not that useful for residential projects. The regional factor is way off of the rates you get with subcontractors and even employees. Some divisions you can get 2X, 3X or even more than the adjusted price.
It can be helpful to get materials quantities for certain systems or assemblies, but that’s not the way residential builders or remodelers work to get their materials estimation.
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If I understand their process correctly, they are collecting self-reported data from contractors across the country throughout the year but only updating the numbers once per year, which means if things are changing quickly (like in the Bay area), their numbers would become outdated pretty quickly.
That makes sense. Thanks for bringing that up. I opened my outdated copy of the RSMeans Contractor’s Pricing Guide: Residential Repair & Remodeling Cost. It’s actually as @jiyan said, they constantly track the cost and publish it yearly.
For the Residential Repair & Remodeling version, they track residential projects from $10,000 - $100,000. They have other publications for new home construction or commercial buildings too. They also suggest adjusting labor prices per local conditions, but that’s exactly the hard part to nail down when things change so quickly.
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This may be what is leading to some of the low insurance payouts in Sonoma and Napa. We’ve heard that some of the claims are returning at around ~$250 per sq ft, which is presenting problems because they aren’t fully accounting for the sharply rising labor costs in the Bay area. The problem is compounded even further due to the spike in demand in NorCal, resulting from the destruction of nearly 8,500 buildings in the region.
Yesterday’s information is not a good indicator of tomorrow. I think the situation in northern cal is economics 101 … supply and demand. Demand is high post disaster, but supply doesn’t change that quickly …
RSMeans is a national average cost database that is only updated annually. Furthermore, it address localization via cost factors (city cost index). The updating method and the use of factors contribute to significant errors. A locally researched granular unit price book is a far superior resource.
What resources do you use for cost estimation?