Opinion of Cost

E2018 uses "opinion of cost" deliberately. The figures in a PCR are preliminary, order-of-magnitude budgets, not estimates or bids, and the guide says they should be construed that way. Each is built from an approximate quantity, a unit and a unit cost, with the unit cost drawn from one of six acceptable sources: user-provided costs, the owner's historical costs, the consultant's own cost files, published commercial data, contractor or vendor quotes, or other qualified sources. Costs are construction costs only, excluding design, permitting, fees and general conditions unless the user asks for them. Fannie Mae's instructions add that every cost must reference its source.

Where a quantity or unit cost is not available, the honest line reads "engineer to provide" with the reason, rather than a figure the field observer cannot support. See cost categories and unit-cost sources.

Related: reporting threshold, immediate costs, long-term costs.