In the last quarter of 2024, Portland was one of the U.S. cities with the most expensive average construction cost for industrial warehouses. Constructing a warehouse in that city could have a cost that ranged between 220 and 305 U.S. dollars per square foot. It was followed by Honolulu and San Francisco, although at some distance. Meanwhile, Las Vegas and Phoenix were the least expensive cities to build warehouses. The most expensive U.S. cities to construct residential buildings were New York, Honolulu and San Francisco.

In the second quarter of 2025, Portland was one of the U.S. cities with the most expensive average construction cost for industrial warehouses. Constructing a warehouse in that city could have a cost that ranged between *** and *** U.S. dollars per square foot. It was followed by Honolulu and San Francisco, although at some distance. Meanwhile, Miami and Austin were the least expensive cities to build warehouses. The most expensive U.S. cities to construct residential buildings were New York, Honolulu and San Francisco.

In the first quarter of 2025, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Honolulu were some of the U.S. cities with the highest housing construction costs. Meanwhile, Phoenix had one of the lowest construction costs for high-end multifamily homes at *** U.S. dollars per square foot and Las Vegas for single-family homes between *** and *** U.S. dollars per square foot. Construction cost disparities As seen here, the construction cost for a high-end multi-family home in San Francisco in the first quarter of 2024 was over ***** more expensive than in Phoenix. Meanwhile, there were also great differences in the cost of building a single-family house in New York and in Portland or Seattle. Some factors that may cause these disparities are the construction materials, installation, and composite costs, differing land values, wages, etc. For example, although the price of construction materials in the U.S. was rising at a slower level than in 2022 and 2023, several materials that are essential in most construction projects had growth rates of over **** percent in 2024. Growing industry revenue Despite the economic uncertainty and other challenges, the size of the private construction market in the U.S. rose during the past years. It is important to consider that supply and demand for housing influences the revenue of this segment of the construction market. On the supply side, single-family home construction fell in 2023, but it is expected to rise in 2024 and 2025. On the demand side, some of the U.S. metropolitan areas with the highest sale prices of single-family homes were located in California, with San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara at the top of the ranking.

In 2024, U.S. cities were some of the most expensive places in the world for hiring a 50-ton mobile crane and an operator for a day. Mobile cranes cost nearly 5,245 U.S. dollars per square meter per day in New York. This was followed by San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, and several Australian and Canadian cities. In contrast, the city in the ranking with the lowest mobile crane costs was Dubai - just above 436 U.S. dollars per square meter for a day.

In a comparison of selected cities worldwide, New York had the highest costs for the construction of a multi-unit high-rise building in 2023. That year, such a project cost on average ***** U.S. dollars per square meter in New York, but just *** U.S. dollars per square meter in Kuala Lumpur. Sydney, London, San Francisco, and Los Angeles were also among the most expensive cities too.

Compared to the overall average of ** different major cities in the United States, building materials in San Francisco were more expensive than in Chicago. Opposed this is a city like Detroit, Michigian, where the price index of building materials was slightly below the average. What this overview tries to do, then, is compare the major cities against each other and whether one was relatively more expensive than the other when it comes to construction costs. This is especially visible for installation - such as HVAC. The city of New York reached an index of *** in ********, meaning installation costs here were around ** percent higher than the average cost for the ** cities combined. Cities found in the state of Texas made up the other end of that spectrum: Installation costs in San Antonio, Houston and Dallas were between ** to ** percent lower than the overall average.

U.S. spending on private construction continued to grow in 2024 and was over ***** times larger than construction spending in the public sector. Texas and California were at the top of the ranking when observing construction spending within the 50 U.S. states. According to a forecast, the value of U.S. construction put in place is expected to keep rising until 2025. Road construction spending: predicted to grow The value of road construction until 2026 was expected to reach the highest recorded values since 2005. However, data suggest that the United States still needs to catch up. When comparing infrastructure spending as share of GDP across various countries worldwide, the average spending of the United States was much lower than that of many other countries. How much have U.S. construction costs changed? Construction costs for housing varied significantly per city, with single-family homes in Honolulu, San Francisco and New York among the most expensive. During the past years, building costs grew in most of the U.S. big cities at a fast pace. Whilst there are many reasons why this occurred – supply and demand, or local zoning rules making it difficult to build – there is one that became especially noticeable in the past years: the prices of many important building materials went up significantly.

Ambulatory healthcare was the type of building with the highest construction costs in Ontario (Canada) in 2024. The cost of that type of building ranged from *** to *** Canadian dollars per square feet. Townhouses, along with warehouses, among the cheapest buildings to construct, even though the townhouse sale price in Canada was much higher in 2024 than in a decade earlier. On the other side of the residential spectrum, the construction cost of high-rise buildings with mid-end specifications could reach up to *** Canadian dollars per square feet. The housing sector in Ontario The fast population growth in Toronto, the main city in Ontario, has put pressure on its housing market. From 2001 to 2023, the number of people living in Canada’s largest city increased from **** to *** million people. During the past years, house prices in Ontario rose at a similarly fast pace. Combined, these elements signal a strong demand for homes in Toronto and Ontario as a whole. The construction sector has responded to this trend: In 2023, most housing starts in Canada took place in the province of Ontario. That same year, EllisDon Corporation, with headquarters in Mississauga (Ontario), was the second-largest contractor in Canada. One of its largest residential/mixed-use projects under development is the 489-539 King St. West Development, in Toronto. Construction cost in North America Building construction costs in Quebec, the second most populous province in Canada after Ontario, had a similar cost range: Ambulatory healthcare buildings were the most expensive, and warehouses were the cheapest to build. However, enclosed malls and higher education buildings were significantly more expensive in Quebec than in Ontario. Across the border, the cities with the highest residential construction costs in the U.S. were San Francisco for multi-family housing, and New York City for single-family housing. Meanwhile, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York had the highest hotel construction costs in the U.S.