Price per square foot isn’t a good measure because it varies by location, finishes and how square footage is calculated. Do you mean finished square footage, do you include garage, covered porches and unfinished areas a such as basements etc? For example our finished psf was about $325-$350 for a bit over 5200 sq ft of a finished duplex (2 kitchens 5,5 baths) but our cost per square footi inluding heated garages and heated but unfinished basements totaling another almost 3800 square feet is much less.

Check with local builders and make sure you are on the same page as to finishes and what square footage is included.

Are you building a house with 2 bathrooms or 5.5 bathrooms?

Are you building a house with a basic kitchen including appliances or are you building with a Christopher Peacock kitchen including the La Corneau range and 48" Sub Zero fridge?

Are you putting in site finished quarter sawn oak hardwood floors or vinyl tiles throughout?

How about the windows? Custom or vinyl?

Roof? Asphalt shingle or slate roof?

Are you building on the Gold Coast of Long Island or in the middle of Mississippi?

Meaning no one can give you a price per square foot.

It can vary hundreds of dollars psf on where you are in the country. The same house in the SE might cost $125/sf, but in LA it might cost $400/sf. NEVER go by sf!!!!!!! That's all marketing BS!!!!!

$150 is a reasonable ballpark for average COLA, middle of road house (whatever that is), and no extraneous costs for utilities or land prep. With all the caveats listed.

Bigger tends to be cheaper per sqft and that is a big variable. In my neck of the woods, $600k can do 4000 sqft build cost only. But not sure that scales down well to $300k for 2000 sqft. This would be not counting 2-3 car garage in sqft total and porches/decks front and back.

We just spent probably $200 for a higher end structure.

"There is no "average price"."

How can you think this is true? Take a well chosen sample of construction projects to represent whatever geographic area and construction quality you are interested in divide the total cost by the number of sqft and poof!, you have an average. What's more that average is useful to many people starting out in the building process, so don't dismiss the idea out of hand.

More useful, of course would be an average and standard deviation to provide a sense of range.

Many folks moving to our part of the world rethink their building plans when they learn the costs for new builds typically run $3-400/sf rather than the $100-200 they are used to. Or that preexisting housing here run $100/sf less than new construction.

Of course what matters in the end is the actual cost for your plan, but for folks just thinking about it for the first time the averages can be very helpful. In planning our house knowing early on that the costs were likely to run in the $400+/sf range for renovation and addition work allowed us to set an approximate size limit that we could use in conversations with our architect about prioritizing what we would do.

The "guesstimate" based on an average turned out to be remarkably accurate, within about 5% of where it ended up.

Ask the first builder you can shake hands with.

"...My husband and I are evaluating whether or not to tear down and build on our existing lot. What is the average price per square foot to build?..."

Wait...you have property with an existing house on it? And you are evaluating demolition or not?

You have a lot more to compare and consider than simply the "average price per SF to build" a new house...demolition, clear and haul off, new utility runs, new site planning and construction all have their own costs.

150 + 400 = 550

550/2 = 275

That's an example of some pretty good math, right there! Always enjoyed addition and division. :-)

@Virgil, yeah, it's pretty good, except for the lack of units. I wonder if he can calculate percentages and really hard stuff like that.

That’s like asking a question in a car forum about “average miles per gallon” for a new automobile. A Honda Civic hatchback and a Ford F-450 are automobiles. One gets 5x the fuel mileage of the other.

So, you do mean fuel mileage for a truck? Would that be a compact light duty truck or a heavy duty tow mobile. Manual or automatic? Standard cab or crew cab? Import or domestic brand? Which engine does the heavy duty crew cab dually automatic Ford F-350 have? Diesel or gas? Which diesel or gas? What is it’s age? Older engines get worse mileage than new.

Once all of the variables are narrowed down, you can get ballpark closer to your needed information.

Take some weekend trips to existing homes for sale and new subdivisions with model homes for a while. Start to get a big picture of real estate costs in your area, and the differences by area. Then talk to a builder. Good luck!

When you have poor data its best to throw out the outliers and average the rest.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Any s.f. cost is garbage except when its calculated for an actual house.

Yep!