Building Vs. Buying: Which Is Cheaper in The Aloha State in 2023?

from Storage Cafe, March, 2023

With home price inflation continuing to rise, many prospective buyers are investigating alternatives, such as constructing their own home from scratch rather than buying an existing one. Yet that raises the question: is it cheaper to build or buy a home in Hawaii?

The StorageCafe team recently analyzed the US residential market, looking at the costs associated with both buying and building a home*. Interestingly enough, Hawaii shines as #1 out of only 18 states where it’s more cost-effective to build rather than buy your next home. With a 494K difference, building here is 47% cheaper than buying.

Here are some key takeaways about Hawaii:

Hawaii’s real estate is far from being affordable. In fact, the median listing price of a home is $1.045M – the highest among all US states

Building compares favorably to buying in Hawaii as overall homebuilding costs range around half the average cost of buying a house in the state – roughly $551K.

Building in the Aloha State will also give you plenty of outdoor space to enjoy. The average lot size for homebuilding is 0.62 acres, nearly twice as much as the national average.

Only 4 states provide larger home lot sizes, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

Curious to find out which US states are cheaper to build in than buy in? Here’s the link to the report.

*Methodology: to determine where building is the most cost-effective, we analyzed the costs associated with both building and buying in every US state, considering land prices for available land for sale, median home lot sizes, the (8% inflation-adjusted) regional costs of making a contract with home builders, and median house prices. To arrive at the overall cost of building a home, we’ve added 10% for administrative costs to these combined factors that might cover building permits, surveys and fees for attorneys, etc.