If you’re underwriting a deal or pricing a build, here’s where Wichita lands right now — not an estimate, not a range wide enough to drive a truck through. What we actually paid, across build-to-rent duplexes and single-family rental homes:
That all-in figure is a build-to-rent duplex — two units, roughly 2,424 square feet under roof, land included — for $308,266. A single-family rental home runs about $189,000 all-in. Both delivered permit-to-keys in under 120 days, most under 100.
Why that number looks low — it isn’t, it’s just real
The national figures make Wichita look like a rounding error, and that’s exactly the point. The average cost to build a single-family home in the U.S. is about $323,000 — construction only, before you buy the dirt. New construction runs $150 to $300 a square foot, with a national median near $166; across the Midwest it sits around $161 to $178.
We build at $108 a foot — construction only, the same basis those national and Midwest numbers use. Well below the regional average, on actuals, not estimates. Put it another way: our build-to-rent duplex — two rentable units, land included — comes in under what the rest of the country pays to build a single house before they’ve bought the dirt.
What’s moving the number in 2026
This matters more this year than most, because build costs are not sitting still. Construction input prices jumped hard to start 2026 — tariffs and energy pushing materials up at their fastest rate in years, with some months running double-digit increases. When the whole market is moving that fast, the builder who actually knows his numbers is worth more, not less.
On our side, the rise has been measured, not dramatic: about 6% over two years, materials up 3 to 4% a year, metal — gutters, flashing, garage doors — worse. And it concentrates where you’d expect. Framing and concrete are roughly 26 to 28% of a build and where the market moves you most. Know those two lines cold and you can hold a number while everyone else is chasing one.
What it means if you’re building or investing
Cost is only half the equation; the other half is what it returns. At a $29,000 land basis — against $45,000 to $61,000 retail — and these build costs, new build-to-rent in Wichita pencils at 12 to 15% yield on cost. That’s roughly double the 7 to 8% the build-to-rent industry targets nationally. It isn’t a hot take — it’s the math falling straight out of the land number and the build number.
If you’re an out-of-state investor, that’s the entire reason to look here: your capital goes further, the timeline is short, and the cost basis is provable to the dollar — because we prove it, every month.