Why New Housing is So Expensive

I read this story from FIXR about the cost to build a home in the U.S. in 2017 according to a survey of 4,267 home builders building the average home with 2,776 finished square feet on a 11,186 square foot lot. The national average cost to build the average new home was $237,760. This does not include the cost of the land, financing costs, or sales costs.

I want to highlight just 1 stage of home building from this story—Job Site Preparation. This stage includes water/sewer inspections, building permits, architectural and engineering, impact fees and other. Nationally this first stage of building a home cost an average of $15,903. I don’t know the exact cost of this stage in metro Denver; but I am sure this cost is at least $75k and more in some cities. In other words our local governments make building a home about 470% more expensive than the average national cost, not the lowest cost, the average cost. Let that number (470%) sink in for a while. This is one major reason why housing is so expensive in metro Denver.