I just bought my first home on 3.5 acres in CA and want to add a barn. I have a quote so far for $36k for two stalls, grooming, tack and hay storage (might put hay elsewhere).
That price includes long lasting composite siding instead of wood, planning, engineering, concrete perimeter, under exterior overhang, isle, tack and grooming bay, installation, gutters, stall doors, feed racks, skylights and gutters.
Is that a good price?
That sounds OK depending on the barn maker and actual construction/material.
Water and electricity will add quite a little bit. Grading/site prep and permits can be a wild card too.
I’m in southern CA and have built a number of barns at our place. Depending on the materials and the configuration of the barn, $7-10K per stall, with everything, is in the ballpark for a good brand like MD or FCP with composite walls.
A simpler barn, like Castlebrook (drop in T & G walls), aluminum sheeting walls, plywood walls, etc, should be considerably less.
I have done well finding used barns on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, but I have an excellent barn guy to dismantle and reassemble. Used barns, good ones, often sell for about $2-3K per stall especially when they are on properties that are either selling and no longer have horsey neighbors, or a new buyer who wants it gone.
Many people have zero idea how expensive it is to construct horse facilities… especially when boarding is essentially a break-even business.
I bought 5.4 acres in northern CA and for a variety of reasons we opted not to do a traditional barn. I do have two 10 x 12 stalls that are stand alone… one for each paddock and each horse. They have barn doors on each side. One I keep closed and the other is always open. Then I did a 12 x 20 work area with an open cross tie area and a, 8 x 12 tack room. I used Ullrich barns. They were made off site and delivered whole and placed. I did a 4” stone dust base 40 x 80’ for the floor and mud management. Then rubber mats in the stalls. We got 40” of rain this year and the horses were high and dry.
Ullrich will make any configuration of stall, run in, shed row, etc. I figured we would be here 10 - 15 years and our place will sell better without horse facilities. We are living as light as we can. The barns I have can be moved again or sold. They are just perfect.
My horses live in 40 x 80’ sacrifice paddocks with their personal shelters. They get turn out on 2+ acres, and I have plenty of room to ride and entertain at the house.
Good luck. The planning was really fun for me. I think all in with grading and base I was at $22k. I used solar lights and did not run electrical. We added water everywhere when we landscaped so that’s not an issue.
agree with both posters… the only thing different we did was to build clear span giving the option of converting barn into a garage or multi use building.
Did find out that as a garage the building appraised at more than twice the value of a barn
(our stalls are free standing and can be removed, the intent was if we moved we would take the stalls with us as they were several thousand dollars each)
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