Dear Tsikot,

I asked a contractor to make a costing/proposal for me for a 3 storey residence. the house has 185 sqm of interior space (1st,2nd , 3rd floor) and 85 sqm of outdoor space (garage, terrace, patio, etc). The contractor quoted me a price of 4.9million. Based on my calculation, it seems that he is qouting me :
19k per sqm for the interior spaces (185sqm x 20k = 3.5M)
+ 8k per sqm for exterior spaces (85sqm x 8k = 680k)
+ 5% contingencies of subtotal (209k)
+ 12% contractor's profit (503k)
for a total of 4.9Million plus.

My question is,do you think this is a fair deal? im not an expert here but i am surprised that the bill actually contains the
contractor's profit which is 12% of the total project cost. (I initially thought that contractors earn only through discounted
prices and marking up labor costs versus what is seen in the quotation). in other words, sa costing.. does the 15k-20k per sqm cost include the contractor profit or not?

Also, I wasnt expecting the bill to be this high as the design of the residence is modern/minimalist type, and the quotation
doesn't include tiles (floor) and plumbing fixtures as this will be the preference of the owner.

Thank you tsikot for being a great source of information/opinion. appreciate the help!