Rebuilding costs

[Pythia]

How do you figure out what the rebuilding costs of your home are? If I ask for a buildings insurance quote, they want to know what the rebuilding cost is. Is there a standard proportion of the resale value? How else can I work this out?

[Loosehead]

The survey will generally contain a figure that represents the building costs. If you have a copy of the survey when you bought it you can start with the base figure and raise it by inflation for the intervening years. The sale value is mainly a function of location and that is not relevant to rebuilding costs, because give or take it costs the same to build a house regardless of where. Insurers are quite fond of using market value so they can sell you a load of building cover you don't need so keep an eye out for that one.

[Pythia]

Thanks, Loosehead. Anyone got any ideas how to go about it if you don't have a survey to refer to?

[smurfchops]

Not sure but just remember that the building costs don't include the price of the land it stands on - eg the cost of rebuilding wouldn't be the same as the price of the house. I would say approximately two thirds of the price of the house. But don't quote me. (Forgive the pun).