Due to persistent supply-side challenges for builders, the average timeline for completing a single-family home was 12 days longer in 2021 than in 2020, according to an NAHB analysis of the Census Bureau’s 2021 Survey of Construction. The average completion time for a home in 2021 was around 8.2 months, which included around a month for authorization to start and 7.1 months to finish construction.
Among all single-family houses completed in 2021, houses built for sale required the shortest amount of time, 7.4 months from obtaining building permits to completion, while houses built by owners (custom builds) required the longest time, 12.8 months. Homes built by hired contractors normally needed around 10.5 months, and homes built-for-rent took about 11.1 months from authorization to completion. Across all categories of single-family houses, the time authorization to start took much longer in 2021. Custom homes built for sale or built by contractors on owner’s land had a little over one-month lag between authorization and the start of construction. The permit-to-start time was even longer for homes built-for-rent (1.64 months), which normally began construction within the same month after obtaining building authorizations in the past.
The average time from authorization to completion also varies across divisions. The division with the longest duration was New England (11.9 months), followed by the Middle Atlantic (11.7 months), the Pacific (9.6 months), the East South Central (9.5 months) in 2021, the East North Central (8.5 months), the West North Central (8.3 months), and the Mountain division (8.3 months).
Looking at single-family homes built for sale and completed in 2021, 32.5% were sold before construction started, 43.2% sold while under construction, 12.7% sold during the month of completion, and 9.8% sold after completion. The share of completed houses remaining unsold was 1.8%.
