Likely it will take longer than one schedules or thinks. Building is often not a precise science of predictable steps. On the other hand, if one is striving for an important investment, with the bank and with life, trying to rush the process may often not be the best tactic.

Eight months for a medium-sized house sounds in line to me, but could be longer (probably not shorter!).

Good luck with your project!

We just started building as well. Our builder plans on taking 8 months but said it could be as long as 10 months. Depending on weather, delays, changes, etc.

4 months last two times which was the estimate. One was 4000+basement with higher end finishes, other was 2000 with modest finishes

Our estimate is 9 months for ~4900 sq ft ICF. I won't be surprised if it takes a little longer though.

Our builder estimates 9 months for a 3500 sq ft house plus basement.

Ours ended up being like birthin' a baby...9 months! ;) That was from groundbreaking til move-in, didn't include design process.

We are moving in after five months, but lack trim, doors, all closet shelves/rods, front columns, and upstairs vanity (DH will build). So six months to real finish? Moving in early to save rent and apply to outstanding needs on the house.

We broke ground on June 9 with a 6 month estimate for a 2 story with a walk out basement. It will be 3400 sq ft. Our new occupancy date is January 11. So if that holds it will be 7 months and 2 days. I am counting it down!

It took nine months for our 5,500 SF two-story home on a poured full basement. It should have taken only eight months but our cabinets were delayed a month.

It took us about 9 months from breaking ground to moving in and then another 7 months to get most of the punch list done!

Our builder estimated 5 months from breaking ground to CO. We started in mid-August and are hoping to be in right at Christmas so we're ahead of schedule even though we experienced several weather-related delays along the way. We have about 5900 sq/ft total under roof with 4200 sq/ft heated on a block crawl, no basement.

just shy of 4 months start to move in. Dug basement on August 1 and moved in on November 24. Estimate was 6 months and we did it in 4!!

Ours will be right at 6 months - 3000 sq ft plus basement. Broke ground on 6/25 and hoping to finish right at Christmas

Ours was estimated to be 4 months.
We broke ground first week in November and as of now late March is the projected date. So probably like 5 months.

Our contract said 120 days to build, we signed it the 7th of March, we may move in this March, maybe.......5100 sq ft, 4400 sq ft living space,700 sq ft garage, walk-out in front, main floor above. They plan to start dry-wall toward the end of this month, we'll see how that goes. The house also has a 1000 sq ft elevated, covered, stamped concrete outdoor living area and just under 1000 sq ft of covered stamped concrete porch.

This post was edited by Mistman on Sat, Jan 19, 13 at 12:02

Our builds have taken about 12 months from start to finish.

Once during the boom here (Edmonton, Alberta) in 2006-2007 it took 18 months as we signed the building agreement just before prices went up.

The crooked builders stopped building everyone's homes who signed with them with the lower price before the boom to build new homes and spec homes at almost double the cost. Our house sat six months framed with no further progress for months and months while spec homes popped up acrossed the street, we watched houses go from a empty lot to people moving in while ours sat half built.

If we complained they said they would give us back our deposits, no way! It would of cost almost twice as much. Some of my neighbors had to get lawyers as their builders tried to get out of their contracts. In the end we made out ok, we sold that house and doubled our money, so the wait was worth it in the end. :)

Estimated 12-15 months. We are on month 17 and likely have two or three more to go.

Ours is projected to take 5-6 months, haven't broken ground yet though.

When getting bids the length of time each builder proposed it would take was very different. The shortest being the builder we selected, the longest being just over a year.

Ours is projected to take 16 months.
5200 sq ft a/c living space.. 2500 sq ft garage. ~2000 sq ft elevated outdoor spaces.

Just signed contract a few days ago, and will hopefully break ground by the end of the month.

We were scheduled for 6 -7 months, likely going to take 10. We had some significant changes along the way and a window mix up that put us back a few weeks.

We were scheduled for 6 -7 months, likely going to take 10. We had some significant changes along the way and a window mix up that put us back a few weeks.

We moved in with a temporary CO after 20 months.
We'd hoped for 15-17 months and would have been fine with that. But the last 8 weeks seemed slow as molasses and no doubt there was some inefficiency at various stages.
Custom plans, rural county, small crew, traditional framing plus timberframe elements, complicated stone work etc all combined to make it a long process.
But we got a meticulously built beautiful home, so I can't complain (too much). :)

Close to 2 years and still at it.

We are supposed to be looking at 6-8 months, 3800 sq ft. Still awaiting the DEC for permits, which is going to take another month?! (We have been waiting for oh, 3 months now?) Our lease for this dump runs out in July or August. And we just found out number two baby should be arriving at the end of Sept. I am terrified that we will have to move in with my mother-in-law. Eeeeeeeeek. And all of our baby stuff is in storage. Sounds promising, right?!

Ours is expected 9 months(3400 sq ft single story), we broke ground in December.

We;ve been told 7 months. We have about 3700 sq. ft. plus full unfinished basement. The last two weeks have been super rainy, but sun is out today! Let's hope they get our basement poured this week! :)
*Not questioning anyone's builders, but truly just curious: What kind of house takes 20 months to build?? Is it super complex, or 10,000+ sq ft.? Just trying to figure that out! Wow...

A builder that we interviewed today quoted us 5 months from groundbreaking. He says that they work on fixed price, so if it goes much longer than that, he's losing money having to pay someone to continue overseeing the build - so it's in his best interest and the homeowner's best interest to complete the build in a timely manner. We'll see if that holds true!

Questioning the 20 months won't seem as appropriate once you start building :)
There are soooooooo many variables, the county, inspectors, timing (lining up the crews), shipping, screw-ups, weather, materials, personalities, site (level, sloped, soggy, etc...), things you weren't expecting and decide you don't like, things you hadn't thought about and you want, labor, transportation (I'm very rural and don't know how many times I heard "they're having some trouble with they're truck/s), deliveries, you can probably think of a dozen more things that may or may not go as planned.
Unless you have a contract that SPECIFICALLY states a completion date (not, it will take 6 months) there's nothing that says they have to have it done when they 'think' it'll be done. Only way to hold them accountable is to put some delinquency clause in the contract that states if they go beyond a specified date there will be a X% per week penalty (or whatever). I doubt you could get a builder to sign something like that w/out a LOT of padding.

We were told a year but it took 19 months (partly weather, partly our fault for adding in a lot of details and making changes).

I would be wary of putting in clauses w/ penalties for completion dates because I'd worry that they'd rush or cut corners if they were getting close to the end and running out of time.

You know what they say: fast, cheap and good, you can only pick 2 of the three.