The miracle about domes is that the cost compares to a conventional home of equal square footage. 
Considering that you will be building a home that is relatively trouble free for your lifetime and can be passed down to your grand kids,
you have remarkably a good value for your money.
Add to that your savings from reduced energy bills, and you will end up with quite a sum. On Monolithic's website, you will find churches that claim to have recouped their building costs just from the energy savings in a matter of decades.
Predicting the actual cost of your dome home is difficult. It will vary depending on your area (east coast versus west coast, city versus county), the choices that you make in design and architecture, the choices you make in furnishing/finishing the domes, and the general state of the economy.
The actual cost per square foot will vary depending on your area. If you live in an area where costs are generally higher, you should expect to pay a little more for the dome. Monolithic believes that the price of your dome will be comparable to a custom built brick home in your neighborhood. Monolithic also maintains that the shell itself is roughly about $30 a square foot. They have an online calculator to help you with an estimate.
The actual cost per square foot will vary depending on your design decisions. A single dome with multiple floors is more cost effective than multiple smaller domes all on a single level. It takes a bit of explaining, but this is just how the formulas work. A little bit more surface area (i.e. a little more concrete) gives you a lot more volume on the inside.
Also, some customers save initial cost by designing a second floor, but leaving it essentially unfinished until the money is available or the kids come along.
The actual cost per square foot will vary depending on your furnishing and finishing choices. If you have a taste for marble countertops and all high-end appliances, your cost to build the inside could easily double. But that is true for any home.
The actual cost per square foot will vary depending on state of the economy. Fuel costs affect the cost of shipping heavy concrete. Hurricanes will affect the cost of lumber in your area.
After all the above mentioned difficulties in estimating the price of a dome, I would like to throw out a number of $125 a square foot. THIS NUMBER REPRESENTS THE COST FROM START TO FINISH, everything except the land. I would prefer that my customers consider the whole cost of building a dome home. The whole cost includes the cost of the appliances that they will need to make a house a home, a place they can live in.
Conventional builders like to throw out numbers like $65.00 a square foot. Be aware that this number is very idealistic at best and deceptive at worst. Numbers like this is obtained by excluding such items as a septic tank from the calculations because a septic tank is technically not part of the house itself.
Another guideline I like my customers to consider is that the way I build my domes, by the time the shell is complete, and by complete I mean including doors and windows, the homeowner is around the half way point in the total cost of the dome. (If the homeowner is going to finish the home himself, then the homeowner will be at closer to the 75 percent mark.) Of course all this is just an estimate based on average costs.
To be sure, banks are more cautious about loaning money for nonconventional construction. I find this surprising because a dome offers so many advantages that it would complement any banks portfolio. Imagine a tornado coming through and wiping out a town. It will be their dome customers who will be able to continue the payments. Unfortunately, it will take time for bankers to start thinking outside the box, literally and figuratively.
For this reason, it is important for the perspective dome buyer be able to finance a higher percentage of the dome. Don't let your eyes be bigger than your wallet. The dome is a worthy investment. It is worth the extra effort. No insurance company will ever be able to compensate you for the loss of your family in the next natural or man-made disaster. But you may need to make a few sacrifices, the most notable is settling for a smaller home.
Unfortunately, the recent mortgage crises has vastly changed the landscape for financing for any unique home. New rules and regulations make it almost impossible for any sincere buyer to secure a loan. (For more information, see New Mortgage Regulations and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Regulation: Even More Dangerous Than Usual.) Sadly, today most of my customers will need to rely on savings and unsecured (credit card) loans to build their dream dome home.
The following lenders/brokers were once willing to work aggressively with my customers. These are as follows:
| Wende Cambe |
Connie Giffin |
Mortgage Consultant |