(The Center Square) – With low inventories still plaguing the housing market in Illinois, a new study looks at whether it is more cost effective to build a home.
The website StorageCafe compared the total building costs including the land and the median single family home listing price.
Doug Ressler, manager of Business Intelligence with parent company Yardi Matrix, said even though existing home prices have jumped over the past couple years, building costs have as well.
“Total building costs in Sangamon County was roughly $476k, $453k in Kankakee, Cook County $510k, as opposed to a median single family home listing price in Cook County was $319k, so the obvious advantage was to look at buying a home as opposed to building,” Ressler said.
It is estimated that building a home in DuPage County will set you back about $550,000, the highest in the state.
Illinois is one of the states that favors buying the most with no less than $166,000 that can be saved on average if one chooses to buy a home rather than build one, the third highest total in the country.
The study shows the total building costs of a new property would cost about $461,000, while the median single-family home list price was $295,000. With a median land price per acre of $91,000 and a median lot size of 0.25 acres, it would cost around $23,000 for land and $396,000 for construction in Illinois.
Ressler said one factor driving up building costs is the price of concrete in the Midwest because of a lack of fly ash.
“The ash is usually received from coal-fired generation plants,” said Ressler. “The coal-fire generation plants are being reduced because of the EPA guidelines for pollutants.”
In only 18 states is it cheaper to build than to buy, including in Hawaii, where building a new home is nearly $500,000 cheaper than buying an existing home.
