Everything here is free, there is no limit on how much you use it, and most of it needs no account at all. I built these because I needed them myself – first as a spec builder putting projects together, then as an appraiser watching people budget a build off a number that was never going to hold.
Material Takeoff
A takeoff is the list of everything a building needs before anyone can price it – how many studs, how many sheets of sheathing, how many yards of concrete, how many squares of roofing. Doing one by hand off a plan set takes an afternoon and a legal pad, and the hard part is not forgetting anything.
Type your dimensions in and it works out the quantities for framing, concrete, roofing, siding and trim, insulation, drywall and the plumbing and electrical rough-in. That path is free, unlimited and needs no account. Upload your building supply house’s own price sheet and every list you make afterwards is priced at what you actually pay.
Build Budget
Work out whether a build pencils before you shop for a loan. Most people do this backwards – they find a lender, ask what they can borrow, and build a plan around the answer. It should go the other way: know what the build costs and what it will be worth, and the loan you need falls out of the arithmetic.
If you are borrowing, it works back from the finished value through the lender’s caps to a cost ceiling – the most the project can cost before a lender stops saying yes. If you are paying cash it skips all of that and tracks your own money. Either way it handles the three things people leave out and cannot explain later: the land, the contingency and the loan interest.
What these will not do
Neither one will tell you what your build costs. Nobody can tell you that from a web page. Construction prices are local, they move, and they are higher per square foot on a small house than a large one – the kitchen and the bathrooms cost the same either way, so the cost spreads over fewer feet. The figures are yours to get, from real bids or from builders you ring.
What these do is take the numbers you have and show you honestly whether they work – with the arithmetic already right and every assumption written down where you can argue with it.