The housing industry is primed for innovation, welcoming in process efficiencies and new technologies. And, even though it's ready, the changes aren't having a measurable impact yet. This study from NAHB shows that the time to build a home hasn't changed in the past three years.
The 2017 Survey of Construction (SOC) from the Census Bureau shows that the average completion time of a single-family house is around 7.5 months, which usually includes almost a month from authorization to start and another 6.5 months to finish the construction. The average completion time in 2017 was the same as it was in 2016, but it was longer than the time needed in 2015 (7 months).
The time from authorization to completion varies across the nation and depends on the geographic location, metropolitan status, and whether the house is built for sale or custom-built. According to the 2017 SOC, it takes anywhere from less than a month to 77 months to build a single-family home from obtaining a permit to completion.
Among all the single-family houses completed in 2017, houses built for sale took the shortest time, 6.9 months from obtaining building permits to completion, while houses built by owners required the longest time, 12.3 months. Homes built by hired contractors normally needed around 9 months. A large proportion of single-family homes built for sale and custom homes built by contractors on owners’ land began construction within the same month after obtaining building authorizations. However, custom homes built by owners serving as general contractors had a one-month lag between obtaining permits and construction start in 2017.
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