What is the average cost per square foot for building a home?

To accurately calculate the price per square foot for home construction you need to know local market rates and building material cost. Labor rates vary wildly by location, products not as much, but depending on local availability and market fluctuations that can also be a variable. Find green building materials here as a starting point to get a handle on costs, as the quality of materials you choose greatly affects cost. Here are a couple of starting pages that will help:

Top tips for planning and building a green home on a budget

How to stay on budget when building a home

Important tips for a successful build or renovation

Building a Passive House will add to the budget for sure, but how much extra depends on your taste in finishing. The factors unrelated to home performance such as the quality of materials for flooring, cabinetry and counters, lighting, etc.. are more a matter of taste that performance, so if you want to keep costs lower so you can invest more in energy efficiency measures then that is the place to trim the budget a bit, not to mention home size of course.

I know this isn’t the price range you were probably hoping to get, its just that there is nothing accurate I could tell you on that unfortunately. I’ve spoken to a few builders local to me in the last while to see where prices had gotten to and I got a very wide range, so that is unreliable near me and wherever you are located it would be different again. And if you are including rooftop solar power generation the price will go up again as well. Not an easy time to pin down buildling costs in general, but I hope this helps! 

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