How to Read the Census Characteristics of New Housing — Contractor-Built Houses, Contract Prices, and Sizes of All Completed Homes

As of 5 November 2026, 00:04 KST (retrieved by this page at that time); most recently published data: the annual Characteristics of New Housing for 2025 from the U.S. Census Bureau, published on July 1, 2026. The figures come from the Survey of Construction (SOC), which the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) partially funds. This page focuses on houses built by a general contractor on the owner's land (contractor-built houses) and their contract prices, with home sizes from the 2025 highlights. Primary source: https://www.census.gov/construction/chars/xls/contractprice_cust.xls^[1][2][3]

Spreadsheet record. The table above and the other contract price figures on this page come from the Census spreadsheet contractprice_cust.xls: retrieved by this page at 2026-11-05 00:04 KST; the file (SHA-256 6c3eb1bfb126c12ecd5d1243ee521fc0538b51be6ba07d86fdae97bf45dff1d4) was opened by this page and the values were read from it (sheet ContractPriceRangeRegion, rows 32, 33 and 35, for counts and price-range shares; sheet ContractMedAvgPrice, rows 39 to 41, 43, 76, 77 and 79, for medians, averages and RSEs; sheet ContrStartsbyFinancing, rows 34, 35 and 37, for financing). Of these, only the 2025 count (131,000) and the 2025 median contract price ($404,000) are also printed on the highlights web page; the 2024 values, averages, shares and regional medians are read from the spreadsheet alone.^[2]

Comparison basis: house counts are in thousands and contract prices in dollars as published in the contract price table; shares are the published percent distributions, which are whole numbers, so point differences here are between rounded shares. Calculated percentage changes are this page's, rounded half up to one decimal. These tables cover houses started in each year, not houses completed or sold. The highlights page, program page, current-data page, definitions and release schedule are all Census Bureau publications and count as one source.^[2][6]

In three lines

1. The annual Census tables on contractor-built houses show how many were started each year, at what contract price (excluding land), in which region and with what financing.
2. In 2025, 131 thousand were started, and the median contract price was $404,000 (both on the highlights page), 13.4% above the 2024 value read from the Census spreadsheet, in this page's calculation.
3. Per the spreadsheet, 37% had a contract price of $500,000 and over, and 27% were paid in cash.^[1][2]

Which houses are counted. The definitions describe contractor-built houses as all houses built for owner occupancy on the owner's land with construction under the supervision of a single general contractor; they also count houses built for rent-free use, such as a house a church builds for its clergy. Contractor-built houses are a different group from houses built for sale, built for rent, or built by the owner acting as the general contractor.^[3][4]

What the contract price includes. "The contract price used in our statistics for contractor-built houses is the price on the original contract awarded to the general contractor." "Generally, the contract price does not reflect subsequent changes in the price resulting from change orders or from any other factors affecting the price of the house." "Finally, because the house is being built for the owner's occupancy on the owner's own land, the contract price does not include the cost of the land." The spreadsheet heading repeats (sheets ContractPriceRangeRegion, ContractMedAvgPrice and ContrStartsbyFinancing, cell A2 of each): "Contract price excludes value of improved lot."^[2][4]

Rounding. In the spreadsheet (sheet ContractPriceRangeRegion, cell A2): "Components may not add to totals because of rounding." For the median and average price sheet (sheet ContractMedAvgPrice, cell A2): "Medians and averages computed from unrounded figures." For the conventional financing column (sheet ContractMedAvgPrice, cell A89, footnote 1): "Includes other types of financing (not shown separately)." These four notes were matched character for character against the spreadsheet cells opened by this page.^[2]

How home size is measured. For single-family houses, floor area is all completely finished floor space. "In concept, measurement is based on exterior dimensions." "This does not include a garage, carport, porch, unfinished attic or utility room, or any unfinished area of the basement." The highlights note: "Note: the estimates shown here are based on sample surveys and are subject to sampling variability as well as nonsampling error."^[1][4]

The highlights page gives these 2025 figures in its text: "The median size of a completed single-family home was 2,142 square feet." "The median size of a new single-family home sold in 2025 was 2,194 square feet." "The median size of multifamily units completed that were built for rent was 1,000 square feet, while the median of those built for sale was 1,170 square feet." "131,000 contractor-built single-family homes were started in 2025." "The median contract price was $404,000."^[1]

The same page counts 1,005,000 single-family homes completed in 2025, 484,000 multifamily units completed and 678,000 new single-family homes sold. The highlights page does not print the 2024 values next to these figures, so this page does not calculate those comparisons. The 2,142 square feet figure is the median size of all completed single-family homes, a different and wider group than contractor-built houses.^[1]

Contract price vs sales price. The 2025 median contract price was $404,000 and the 2025 median sales price of new single-family homes sold was $417,400. They describe different houses and different prices: the sales price is for houses built for sale and includes the improved lot, while the contract price is for contractor-built houses and excludes land. In this page's reading, the two medians are not a like-for-like comparison, and the gap between them does not measure the value of land.^[1][2][4]

Median vs average. The U.S. average contract price was $576,500 in 2025, $172,500 above the median (this page's calculation), and rose 17.5% against 13.4% for the median. The average is more sensitive than the median to very high contract prices; both can change when the mix of houses started changes.^[2]

One year vs several years. The median contract price was $400,700 in 2023, $356,200 in 2024 and $404,000 in 2025: down 11.1% and then up 13.4%, leaving 2025 0.8% above 2023 (this page's calculations). In this page's reading, a single year-to-year change in this series is best read alongside the years around it.^[2]

Regional medians vs their precision. The Midwest median rose 22.8% to $457,200 and the West median 5.0% to $377,200. The printed RSE (relative standard error) row for medians shows 5% for the Midwest, 8% for the South, 14% for the West and 18% for the Northeast, against 4% for the United States. The RSE describes the sampling variability of each estimate in its column; it is not a test of whether a change between years is significant, and in the spreadsheet opened by this page the RSE row (sheet ContractMedAvgPrice, cells A43 to J43, directly below the 2025 row) carries the label RSE with no year of its own. Per the definitions: "Approximately 90 percent of the intervals from 1.6 standard errors below the estimate to 1.6 standard errors above the estimate would include the average value of all possible samples."^[2][4]

Components vs totals. In 2025 the contract price groups add to 130 thousand against a total of 131, and the percent distribution adds to 101 (this page's sums; the difference is rounding). The four regions add to 131 thousand in 2025 and 127 in 2024, matching the U.S. totals. Counts below 500 units are shown as (Z).^[2]

Completed vs sold home sizes. The median completed single-family home was 2,142 square feet and the median new single-family home sold 2,194, a difference of 52 square feet (this page's calculation). The completed group includes contractor-built, owner-built and built-for-rent houses, while sales statistics cover houses built for sale only; per the definitions: "Excluded from these estimates are houses built for rent, houses built by the owner, and houses built by a general contractor on the owner's land."^[1][4]