For new construction, and full-gut renovations your drywall contractor will be giving you prices “per board.” Additions also will be priced per board, but economies-of-scale needs to be considered and the price per board will be slightly more expensive. Even though this would be the most accurate way to estimate your drywall line item, it is incredibly hard to do unless you have significant experience doing drywall take-offs. For this reason, we recommend estimating per square foot, which still produces very accurate estimates. Here we will give you pricing for each of these methods;

Price per board; $75 - $125 per board

Price per square foot (of home); $3-$6 per square foot

Estimating for drywall repairs, patching, and spot installs (anything less than 10 boards), is a little more difficult. These prices will be hard to gauge until you get comfortable seeing bids come through for different scopes of work. It is best to use a price range here, against different extents of drywall repair needed. By no means is this a perfect process. However, it is a process that you can use to create more confidence and efficiency; and over time you will be able to refine this range and these scopes to be even more accurate and affective.

Drywall repairs/patching; $500 - $2,000

$500 - Little drywall repair needed. Might need one board of drywall. Maybe a repair from a roof leak. Rapairing cracks and other small defects.

$1,000 - Maybe need one or two boards of drywall. Could have multiple holes or leaks. Probably needs significant work on drywall repairs.

$1,500 - Needs three or more boards of drywall, and/or needs significant repairs throughout. This drywall is in very bad shape and needs a lot of work.

$2,000 - This is about as much drywall work needed, before you start pricing per board. This house is probably a wreck, but you can salvage most of the drwyall. Mold, leaks, holes, and cracks are very prevelant.

Drywall Material has stayed rather consistent in price over the past 3 months.

½” Drywall (4’x12’); $17 - $21 per board

½” Drywall (4’x8’); $10 - $14 per board

Drywall mud; $15 - $20 per 5 gal.

These cost estimates are specific to the Richmond, Va market. This is an averaged price market in the U.S. for construction costs. Right now The Playbook does not have cost estimates for other markets, but would recommend using this as a reference and adjusting the costs 10-20% +/- for your specific market.

Don’t forget to see our Cost Estimates spreadsheet where we upload all of our prices for the most common scopes of work when rehabbing or developing property.