Is it now cheaper to build or buy homes in Florida? - Jacksonville Business Journal (2024)

As the price of homes continue to rise and inventories dwindle, many Americans are looking to alternatives like constructing a new home. Typically it's the more expensive option, but due to recent market changes, is it now cheaper to build a house?

In Florida, the answer is an easy yes, as the state ranked among the top 10 where it is cheaper to build than buy an existing home, according to a new study from StorageCafe.

Florida can offer savings of $76,000 when building a house, with the cost of residential land being fairly pricy at $108,000 per acre and the median size being a compact 0.20 acres. While the savings are comparable to those obtained in the Western mountain states, the median prices are considerably lower — the costs of building and buying are $375,000 and $451,000, respectively, meaning the savings would stretch further to pay for more real estate construction work, according to the report.

However, within the Sunshine State, there is a very wide difference in costs across the various counties and regions.

In the First Coast for instance, Duval is the only county where it is cheaper to buy an existing home. Average total construction costs in Duval County on a lot sized about 0.2 acres will set back potential builders about $380,000, as opposed to the average single-family residence's price of $330,000.

However, in Nassau and Clay counties, builders have the upper hand over buyers. In Nassau, potential builders can expect to spend about $361,000, about a $60,000 savings over the average priced existing home. Potential builders in Clay County should also expect about a $12,000 savings in building over buying with the average cost to build a home around $357,000.

St. Johns County was not analyzed in StorageCafe's report.

Sunshine State

Monroe County, which includes the exclusive Florida Keys communities, has the state’s highest-priced houses, with a median price of slightly over $1.5 million. And although land is unsurprisingly expensive here too — $1.3 million per acre, with the median lot size being a compact 0.14 acres — building a house would generate huge savings of around $1 million compared to buying one, according to the report.

Other places where building gives a big financial advantage include the coastal Panhandle counties Walton and Gulf — the benefit in the former would be no less than $657,000 due to an average listing price of $1.1 million. Similarly, Gulf Coast retirement-paradise counties Collier and Sarasota also favor building, having low land costs of $81,000 of $108,000 per acre, with building a home in the former costing around $576,000 less than a median listing price there of approaching $1 million. Other counties, according to the report, rewarding builders are the desirable addresses of Palm Beach and Martin, north of Miami, and Orange, which includes the employment-magnet city of Orlando.

Anyone wanting a house in or around Magic City should know that Florida’s highest land prices of $2.5 million and $1.7 million per acre, in Broward and Miami-Dade counties respectively, make buying far more economical than building on a median-sized lot there. Interestingly, inland countiesare often the ones that mostfavor buying a ready-made residence, with Putnam and Bradford near Jacksonville leaving buyers with averages of around $100,000 in their pockets — in all these cases, although total building costs are not exorbitant at less than $400,000, median listing prices are less than $300,000, according to the report.