Estimated cost, two-story rowhouse addition?

[Anonymous]

Has anyone done this recently? This would be for a master bedroom/bath upstairs and a family room on the first floor. Probably about 500 sq ft total (250 per floor). I'm in Alexandria, but not in a historic building so hopefully would not have any unusual permitting/preservation issues.

[Anonymous]

I would say you are looking at $200k-$350k depending on who you use. We are doing a larger addition (~1000 sqft over three levels) and gut interior reno for ~$500k in NW DC.

[Anonymous]

It's a ton. When I asked in 2018 it started at 150K so I would assume 300K+ in today's prices

[Anonymous]

Not worth it just sell and buy another house

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would say you are looking at $200k-$350k depending on who you use. We are doing a larger addition (~1000 sqft over three levels) and gut interior reno for ~$500k in NW DC.

So you paid about 250k for the addition. That is not bad at all for 1000sq feet.

I did a gut reno on for 250k in 2017-2018.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not worth it just sell and buy another house

How much would she spend on seller's closing costs + fixing up a few things before putting house on market + moving cost?. I bet the difference in cost between moving and renovating would be about 100k when all is said and done.

100k is well worth it if she likes her location. Now, if a third option is staying put and not renovating, that's great.

[Anonymous]

We did this in Alexandria in a small detached home in 2014 for $210k. As part of this we added a new bathroom and gut remodeled an existing bathroom and relocated interior staircase and replaced siding, so if you aren’t touching the other spaces your scope of work would be smaller.

Prices now are at least 40% higher given quotes we received for a different project last year.

[Anonymous]

We added a 200ft family room one level (on stilts with storage underneath) with a bathroom inside the 200ft. We didn’t have a toilet on the main floor.

$160k

Expensive per foot costs but we use the new space and that powder room often now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would say you are looking at $200k-$350k depending on who you use. We are doing a larger addition (~1000 sqft over three levels) and gut interior reno for ~$500k in NW DC.

Any chance you could share who you are using? We’re looking to do something similar.

[Anonymous]

You can safely estimate that an addition would be $350 to $500 / Sq ft, depending on finishes and assuming no kitchen. Estimate an additional 10% for the architect.

[Anonymous]

My neighbors looked into this, and they said it would be like 400k.

They didn't do it (thank goodness). I honestly don't understand why one would even do such a crazy extension - at that cost, just sell and buy a different place.

[Anonymous]

We did it for about $500k last year. For a number of reasons, location being our #1, we added and renovated our current place. Glad we did it.

[Anonymous]

We did a gut reno of everything but our kitchen plus 500sf addition (one story, over an existing addition) plus a screened-in porch in 2021 for about $450k all in. Beyond what you pay the contractor, you need to budget for architect and engineering fees, moving in/out, costs for a rental house, and all the fittings and fixtures - in our case that included all new windows, doors, roof, and siding.

Also, fwiw, our 500sf addition was a primary suite. It's roomy but hardly huge - we don't have space for a sitting area or workout equipement or anything like that. If you're adding a full bedroom, primary closet and bathroom, 250sf may be a tight squeeze. The cost differential between adding 250sf per floor and 350sf per floor will be relatively small in the scheme of things.