A finished house is a listed house.

Somewhere between 3 months and 10 years. There are so many variables, it's really hard to say. It took me 4 years to build our house, working alone. A friend of mine had a modular built in 3 months. Who's building it? Tract home, stock plan, semi-custom, or full custom? Even the demo of the existing house could have a lot of variables.

Here's one data point for you: Florida custom build, site was already cleared and prepped, and I felt good progress was made almost every week = 11 months. .

I would guess: +1 month for demolition and site prep? +1 month if your builder can't get the subs there when he needs them?

I'd be thrilled with twice as long. ;-)

As mushcreek said, you need to give more info

Six months to two years, depending upon the builder, the weather, house design complexity, local construction environment, how fast you need to be moved in, and a plethora of other factors.

Hmmmm, a Habitat for Humanity chapter built a house in under 3&1/2 hours.3&1/2 hours

There is a house here locally that has been worked on intermittently for over 20 years---still technically a new build, since it has never been finished or lived in.

We had a new house built in 1978. The builder needed 10 months, while a more established builder built the house next door in 30 days.(That house had problems all the time).

A HfH chapter with which I volunteered did Blitz builds on occasion, four houses in a month(about 200 volunteers a week on Saturdays) and the trades(HVAC, electrical, plumbing) during the week. Those were similar designs, all the materials were in known amounts.

Basement? If no basement, I think you would be fortunate to be in within a year of demo.

Good luck!

[ETA: We know folks who have had homes built in Palo Alto and neighboring communities. The time from demo to move in ranged from ~15 mos to ~24 mos. But I have seen a number of properties go from closing on tear-down to new spec home staged and listed for sale in ~12 mos so it must be doable ;-)]

Handymac, I know of a house like that - 20 years or more, still not finished. My theory is that the owner is paying for construction by collecting and selling aluminum cans.

Palo Alto--my old home town! Permits and approvals there take a long time. Without seeing the existing house and lot, and not knowing your design for the new home, I'll guess at least one month for site demolition and preparation to build, and 12 months to properly build a new custom house. Could be longer if not phased to take into account the rainy winter season. Good luck--lovely place! :-)

plus X months if your builder can't get the subs..:)

We have had two houses built in the last 10 years. In the first instance, it took about six months to get the surveys, plans and building permits cleared, and seven months to build. In the second case, the plans had already been done, it took about two months for the permit, and the build was supposed to take six months. It took almost ten. Both houses were in the 2000sq ft range.

It also depends on if the builder is working on multiple houses at the same time. Our builder was working on another house that was huge. We had to get the whip out and also a few choice words and threaten to move in with him until he got it finished because we had just sold our house.

14 months 2700 square feet in Western Washington. Not including design etc. First shovel to 95% done. Last 5% takes like another year.

Forever, plus a day or two tacked on for the unexpected.

We hired our architect three years ago, broke ground one year ago and expect to move in this weekend. 1600 sf in the mountains of Colorado.

This is a question that I desperately wanted an answer to. We broke ground in September '16 and moved in this past April 20. The actual build took about 7 months. Framing went so quickly I was sure we would be in by the end of February. Ha, novice. There are moments of stalling whether it's sub related or weather. Sometimes things just take more time than anticipated. I wish there was a more concrete answer to this question because before I started the process I wanted to know an exact timeline. Towards the end I felt like the electricians and painters took forever but that was probably because we were so close.

I'm presuming you've chosen a contractor who has experience building similar homes in the area. Ask the referrals (which I assume you've received) how long he told them and how long it actually took. That should give you a good idea.

Contracting our home, 4,000sf...started March 23, 2016 and will finally move in next week. Went pretty smoothly overall but still delays due to sub's schedules or our own.

I am building in the East Bay of California. County, neighbors & city took the juice out of us and that alone took a year. Broke ground August 2016 and we are still building or at least trying to. We lost our GC a month ago and are looking for a suitable replacement.

Good luck with your build and be prepared for surprises :)