In the Pakistani market, 'grey structure' means your house standing complete but unfinished: foundation and plinth, columns and beams, brick masonry, RCC roof slabs, internal and external plaster, and — this is the part people miss — the electrical conduits and plumbing pipes buried in the walls before that plaster goes on. Main gate and door frames (chowkats) are usually included too.
The quantities, so you can audit a quote
For a double-storey house, the working thumb rules run about 32 bricks, 0.42 cement bags and around 2.25 kg of steel per square foot of covered area for load-bearing construction (steel roughly doubles for an RCC frame), with about 2 cft of sand and 0.85 cft of crush. A 1,975 square-foot 5 marla therefore wants on the order of 63,000 bricks, 830 bags and four and a half tons of sariya. If a quote's quantities sit far from these, ask why — sometimes there is a good reason, often there is not.
Where corners get cut
The classics: doem bricks billed as awal; 'per bag' mortar ratios quietly stretched; slab steel spaced wider than drawn; plaster sand with too much silt; waterproofing and termite treatment 'included' but never done; and curing rushed — slabs need their week before the next floor loads them, and the backfill needs 7 to 10 days after the footing pour. None of this shows in a photo. It shows in year three.
Rate-wise, standard grey structure with material has been running roughly Rs 2,600 to 3,500 per square foot in Lahore this year, city and spec depending. Our estimator itemizes every grey line — bricks, cement, steel, sand, crush, labour — with today's rate and the math shown, precisely so you can hold a quote against it.