The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2017 Survey of Construction found that the average construction time for a new single-family house was about 7.5 months, including one month from the time the project was approved to when construction began. The houses that took the least of time to build were built for sale at roughly 6.9 months and the homes that took the longest to build were owners who built their own with 12.3 months on average. Scott Gibson from Green Building Advisor reported other interesting findings from the survey. Check them out below.
- Construction times varied substantially by region. In New England and the Mid-Atlantic, construction times were 10.4 months and 10.3 months respectively. In the South Atlantic region, the time was only 6.4 months. On the West coast, construction averaged 8.5 months.
- It took builders a minimum of two weeks to begin work after permits were issued, but the delay could be much longer. In the Mountain region, builders were relatively speedy and needed only 17 days to start work. In New England, the wait was an average of 36 days, while on the West coast it was 39 days.
- Builders in metro areas are speedier than those in rural areas. The difference between metro and non-metro completion times was in some cases significant. In the Pacific region, for example, single-family houses in metro areas took a little more than 8 months, on average, to complete while houses in non-metro areas took more than 14 months. But the spread in other areas was much smaller — in the South Atlantic region, for instance, the difference between metro and non-metro completion times was only a few weeks.
