The Cost Of Building A House

6th October 2024

A new report by The Housing Forum answers the all-important question: How much does it cost to build a house?

The Housing Forum, is a cross-sector body for the construction and housing sector and became aware of concern across the sector about the rising costs of building new homes. The high inflation seen over the last few years has had a particularly severe effect on construction and is having a long-term impact on costs, with delays and uncertainty in the planning system exacerbating the issue.

We therefore pulled together data from across our membership base - who between them span the whole process of building a house - from manufacturing the component parts, designing it, obtaining planning permission, building it and ultimately selling or managing the new home.

This has come together as a new report: The Cost of Building a House.

The intention is for this to help non-experts and policymakers understand the costs of building a house or flat, and those working in one part of our sector understand more about what affects costs in other parts.

Key findings are that:

Construction costs for an average-sized three-bedroom semi-detached house in the easiest possible setting are estimated at £133,000.

After adding on the costs of external works, planning, professional fees, services and finance costs, the total cost of building this house comes to £202,000.

There are a large number of additional ‘abnormal' costs to building a house, meaning that a more typical cost would be around £242,000.
New environmental and building safety requirements will mean that this cost will rise to £251,700 in the near future.

Read the full report HERE
Pdf 16 Pages