Grey structure — the bare, unfinished skeleton of a house — costs about PKR 2,650 to 3,400 per square foot of covered area in Pakistan in 2026, or roughly 45 to 53 percent of a complete build. For a 5 marla double storey of about 1,975 square feet that is broadly PKR 52 to 67 lakh, before a single tile is laid or a wall is painted.
What grey structure includes
Everything that makes the house stand up and keep the weather out: excavation and the foundation, the RCC frame or load-bearing walls, columns and beams, brick masonry, the roof slabs, internal and external plaster, and usually the boundary wall and gate. In material terms that means cement, steel (sariya), bricks or blocks, sand and crush, plus the mason, steel-fixer and labour to place them. When it is done you have a complete grey shell with openings for doors and windows.
What it leaves out
Everything you can see and touch in a finished home. No flooring, no paint, no doors or windows, no electrical fixtures or plumbing fittings, no kitchen cabinetry, no bathroom tiling or sanitary ware. That is all finishing, and it is a separate 47 to 55 percent of the budget. This is why a grey-structure quote always looks reassuringly cheap — half the money is still ahead of you.
The material split, and where the volatility is
Cement, steel and bricks dominate the grey number. Steel is the most price-volatile line by far — its rate can move month to month — so lock quantities against thumb rules (roughly a few kilograms of steel and a handful of cement bags per covered square foot, more for an RCC frame) and price them on the day. Because steel swings, two grey quotes a few weeks apart can differ by lakhs for the same house.
Grey-only vs complete on the calculator
If you are phasing your build — grey now, finishing when funds allow — set the scope to Grey only in the construction cost calculator. It re-prices the whole estimate to just the structural lines and shows the grey timeline separately, so you can budget the shell first and the finishes later without guessing the split.
A grey-structure rate is only half a plan. Before you sign, price the complete build too — the finishing half is where budgets actually die — so you are negotiating the shell with your eyes open about what comes after it.