Buy the house, or build the house?

One of these gets you a house. The other gets you the house.

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Buy

Faster by most of a year. The price is knowable today, the inspection tells you what's wrong, and you're living in it before the build next door has a roof.

What you give up is the plan. Every resale is someone else's set of compromises — the kitchen they wanted, the bedroom they didn't need.

Build

Slower, and the number moves until it doesn't. In return every wall is where you put it, and nothing is deferred maintenance from 1998.

What you give up is a year of your life spent choosing things, and a lot that may not exist yet in the neighborhood you want.

Is it cheaper to build or buy a house? Asked six ways, answered with the record.

Is it cheaper to build or buy a house in Iowa right now?

On paper, usually not: in the Des Moines metro a new build costs more than a comparable resale once the lot and soft costs are in. For a 2,400 sq ft mid-finish house in Ankeny, the ledger puts building at $652,104 against $553,728 to buy — about $98,376 more, and 7 months longer to keys. What flips it is owning the lot, wanting a house nobody is selling, or a city where the new-build premium is small. The ledger above runs your size, finish and city.

What does it cost to build a house in Iowa?

Construction alone runs from about $168 a square foot at builder grade to $380 for luxury, with mid finish around $212. Add a buildable lot — $60,000 to $140,000 across the metro's cities — and about 8% in soft costs for permits, design, survey and construction financing. A 2,400 sq ft mid-finish house on a bought lot in Ankeny comes to roughly $652,104.

Is it cheaper to buy land and build a house?

Owning the lot is the single biggest swing in the ledger. The same 2,400 sq ft Ankeny house drops from $652,104 to $549,504 when the lot is already yours — which puts building $4,224 below a comparable resale. Tick "I already own a lot" above to see it for your city.

New construction vs existing home — what's the real difference?

Time and premium. A resale is two months to keys; a build is 8 to 13 depending on finish. In Ankeny over the last twelve months, homes built in the last two years sold for $252 a square foot against $224 for everything else — a $28 premium buyers actually paid. Against that: no deferred maintenance, current code, and the plan you chose.

Is it more expensive to build or buy a house — and by how much?

It depends on the city, because resale prices differ far more than construction costs do. Resale prices in this ledger are the median price per square foot of recorded sales in each city over the last twelve months, from the Polk County Assessor; construction costs are metro estimates by finish level. Pick a city above and the gap updates; the city pages show the recorded numbers behind each one.

Where do the numbers come from?

Resale $/sq ft: recorded residential sales by city, Polk County Assessor, reloaded weekly. Rates: Freddie Mac's weekly survey via FRED. Metro prices: FHFA's house-price index. Construction and lot costs: metro estimates for this year, marked as such. With an address, the county's assessed value, year built, lot size and last recorded sale for that parcel.

The ledger, city by city.

Each city page starts from that city's recorded sales — median price, dollars per square foot, how much of the market is new construction — and presets the ledger to it.

• Ankeny$335,000 · $224/sf
• Des Moines$227,128 · $190/sf
• West Des Moines$315,000 · $204/sf
• Urbandale$303,700 · $196/sf
• Johnston$385,000 · $223/sf
• Altoona$331,500 · $223/sf
• Grimes$354,500 · $232/sf
• Bondurant$329,945 · $219/sf
• Pleasant Hill$322,000 · $214/sf
• Polk City$423,770 · $272/sf
• Clive$366,250 · $206/sf
• Windsor Heights$300,000 · $192/sf

Median recorded sale and price per square foot, last twelve months · Polk County Assessor