Compare Building Costs Between States
What it costs to build the same 2,000 sq ft mid-range home in one state versus another. Every figure below comes from the same cost model, so the comparison is apples to apples.
The widest gap on this list is Texas vs California — building costs 58% more in the pricier of the two. The narrowest is Tennessee vs Georgia, where the two come out identical at $157/sq ft — close enough that lot price and builder availability will matter more than the state you pick.
| Comparison | Cost / sq ft | Gap | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas vs California | $164 / $259 | 58% | Texas |
| California vs Arizona | $259 / $170 | 52% | Arizona |
| Idaho vs Washington | $164 / $211 | 29% | Idaho |
| Pennsylvania vs New Jersey | $193 / $236 | 22% | Pennsylvania |
| Massachusetts vs New Hampshire | $241 / $200 | 21% | New Hampshire |
| Hawaii vs California | $313 / $259 | 21% | California |
| Florida vs Georgia | $188 / $157 | 20% | Georgia |
| Virginia vs North Carolina | $188 / $161 | 17% | North Carolina |
| Texas vs Florida | $164 / $188 | 15% | Texas |
| New York vs New Jersey | $264 / $236 | 12% | New Jersey |
| Colorado vs Utah | $196 / $175 | 12% | Utah |
| Texas vs Oklahoma | $164 / $150 | 9% | Oklahoma |
| Washington vs Oregon | $211 / $200 | 6% | Oregon |
| Arizona vs Nevada | $170 / $179 | 5% | Arizona |
| Minnesota vs Wisconsin | $182 / $173 | 5% | Wisconsin |
| North Carolina vs South Carolina | $161 / $155 | 4% | South Carolina |
| Michigan vs Ohio | $170 / $164 | 4% | Ohio |
| Georgia vs North Carolina | $157 / $161 | 3% | Georgia |
| Missouri vs Kansas | $157 / $152 | 3% | Kansas |
| Tennessee vs Georgia | $157 / $157 | 0% | even |
How these comparisons are built
Each figure is a 2,000 sq ft, two-story, mid-range home priced through the same cost engine that powers the calculator on every page of this site — construction cost only, land excluded. State-to-state differences come from measured labor wages, material indexes, and permit-derived cost calibration, not from separate per-page assumptions.
For the underlying data on any single state, see the 51-state data table in our 2026 report, or read the full methodology.