Definition of "Replacement cost"

Mary  O Connell real estate agent

Written by

Mary O Connellelite badge icon

O Connell Properties

Are you thinking to yourself: What does replacement cost mean?

When someone in the Real Estate Market mentions Replacement Cost, they are talking about an evaluation of how much it would cost to build a completely identical new house to replace an old one. By completely identical, read as built with the same materials (or materials of equal quality), the same square footage and the same amount of bedrooms, bathrooms and whatever other types of rooms the preexisting house had. Included in this calculation is also the manpower required to build the new house on the place of the old one.

Why is this done? Well, determining the replacement value of an asset is mostly done for insurance reasons – like calculating the depreciation of the house over its useful life to cover any damage – but the so-called replacement cost approach can also be done by an Appraiser in order to help assert the Market Value of a house in volatile markets where the real estate market external factors are difficult to evaluate.

Real Estate Secrets:

Building a new house to replace the old one? There are a bunch of other terms you should look on our 
Glossary to guide you through this tiring process!

You know a difficult replacement cost to calculate? That of a trustworthy agent! Use The OFFICIAL Real Estate Directory® to find one!

image of a real estate dictionary page

Have a question or comment?

We're here to help.

*** Your email address will remain confidential.
 

 

Popular Real Estate Terms

In order to define allotment, we have to take into consideration what it refers to. While generally, it refers to a certain amount of something that is allocated to a particular person, the ...

Derogative term describing a high-pressure telemarketing office where sales personnel often use extremely exaggerated claims as well as intense sales practices to convince targets clients ...

The total return from holding a real estate investment for the holding period of time. The computation follows: For a mutual fund investing in a real estate, the return is in the form ...

Authority given by a municipality to perform specified operations in a certain zoning area. Conditions are sometimes attached by the zoning group. An example is permission to have a ...

Agequake is not the era of earthquakes! It’s a term that was coined by author Paul Wallace in his 1999 book “Agequake: Ridding the demographic rollercoaster shaking business, ...

The capital expenditure definition is an evaluation method of investments that a company of any kind, including real estate developments, makes to maintain or upgrade tangible assets. These ...

report containing financial information about a business or individual. The required financial statements for a real estate company are balance sheet, income statement, and statement of ...

A married partner. Property may be jointly held by spouses. ...

Let’s explore the definition of attribution in practice! Attribution is when you give an individual credit and the right to perform a specific action or the quality of one particular ...

Popular Real Estate Questions