How much does it cost to move a house?

Moving is a common part of life; most people have done it at least once. Packing everything up, moving to a new house, then unpacking in your new place is an exhausting task that nobody likes. Now, imagine what a task it is to move an entire house!

Believe it or not, you can move a house from one place to another. Unsurprisingly, this is an enormous, expensive effort that still requires you to pack everything up. However, sometimes moving a house is necessary.

This complicated task requires a team of experts, from a general contractor to engineers to electricians and more. Let’s explore what’s involved in moving a house, from the process to the costs.

What does it mean to move a house?

Moving from one home to another is straightforward enough, but that’s not what it means to move a house. We’re talking about digging up a house and physically transporting it to a new location.

It sounds complex, but moving a house isn’t quite as extreme as you might think. It’s a time-consuming, expensive process, but you’re essentially unattaching the house from utilities, removing it from its foundation, and then doing the opposite on a new foundation in a different location.

Why would someone want to move a house?

There are a number of reasons someone may physically move a house. The primary throughline to those reasons is that they love their home enough to want to keep it rather than relocate and move into a new. Some of the main reasons homeowners may move a house include:

• It’s a historic home: Historic houses are usually the best candidates for physical relocation because they justify the cost and effort involved. It’s worth preserving a house on the National Register of Historic Places, but wear and tear and erosion of the foundation and lot may make keeping the home in the same spot untenable. Moving it is a good way to preserve the structure.
• Proximity to water: With rising sea levels, a waterfront home can be tenuous these days. A home on an eroding or receding shoreline is at risk of falling into the water or getting severely damaged in serious storms. Moving the home further away from the shoreline is usually a more cost-effective solution to buying a new house.‍
• Personal relocation: Life happens. Maybe you got a new job in a new city or a different state, a parent or loved one has taken ill and you want to be closer to them, or a child went off to school and you’d like to live nearby. For many people, personal events are a reason to move. Those who truly love their houses would rather physically relocate the home rather than buy a new one.‍
• Foundation issues: Another common reason people move homes is to fix the foundation. Erosion or growth can cause damage to foundations. Sometimes, that damage is irreconcilable and it requires relaying the foundation in a new spot. That means digging up the house and moving it to the new foundation, even if it’s still on the same plot.

Can you move any house?

It’s easy enough to dig up the vast majority of single-family homes and move them to a different location on the same lot. The biggest hurdle to moving a house is the route between the original location and the destination.

If the house is in a heavily-wooded area and only accessible by a narrow dirt road, for instance, you won’t be able to move that house very far. In urban or suburban areas, low-hanging utility and electrical wires complicate moving a home, too.

While it’s possible to contact electric, cable, and telephone companies to coordinate moving wires enough for a home to clear, it will add to the cost and you’ll have to work along their timeline.

Ultimately, moving a house likely requires strategic detours, coordination with local authorities, and potentially paying extra to move utilities and mitigate traffic. That’s why it’s much easier to move a home locally than between states.

How much does it cost to move a house?

According to Angi, the total cost to move a house ranges between $15,000 and $200,000. Angi estimates that an 1,800-square foot house costs anywhere from $12 to $16 per square foot to move. That’s a wide range, of course, and speaks to how many factors impact the process and pricing. Let’s take a look at some of those factors.

Structure size, shape, and type

Naturally, a larger house will cost more to move. It takes more time to dig up and move a 1,200-square-foot cottage than it does a 4,000-square-foot mansion, which means a higher labor cost.

While a single-story home is generally easier to move than a multi-story home due to overhead wires and trees, a single-story home with strange angles or a very wide base may actually be more expensive to move than a two-story home. That’s because digging up strange angles and finding the right truck bed to accommodate them may require some custom work.

You can move a house made of any material, but expect to pay more to move a house with historic shingling or an extensive glass structure due to the extra care needed to keep it intact.

Foundation type

Concrete slab is the easiest type of foundation to move because it’s very stable. That makes it much easier for workers to pick the house up off the foundation. Many older homes sit on rubble or stone foundations, which are harder to transport and more sensitive to remove. Many shoreline houses are built on wood pilings and piers which, likewise, are a bit more precarious to move from than a concrete slab.

Expect to pay more if your home isn’t on a concrete foundation.

Additional features

If your home has a garage, balcony, porch, deck, or other exterior or attached feature, expect to pay more than someone would for a similar sized home without any of those features. Each of these items adds time and labor to the move because, usually, they’ll have to be removed from the house and then reattached at the destination. If they don’t have to be removed, then you could save some money.

Specialists

Any physical relocation of a house will require a general contractor to oversee the construction, an engineer to ensure the safe removal and relaying of the home on a new foundation, and plumbers, electricians, and inspectors to get the house hooked back up to utilities. But, as we touched on before, if you need special servicing to move hanging lines or trees along your route, or a police escort to close roads while you’re moving, all of that will cost extra. Plus, if you decide to make any changes to the house at the new location, you’ll open a whole new range of costs for an addition, from architects to painters.

Is it cheaper to move a house than to build a new one?

According to HomeAdvisor, the average cost to build a house in the US is $309,498, with a range of $118,749 to $500,595. That’s significantly more than the cost to move an existing house.

While the cost of land may increase the total cost to move a house above that $200,000 average, in most cases, it will be more affordable to physically move a house you love than it would be to build or buy a new one.

That said, it isn’t always possible to move your house just anywhere. There are restrictions and you may not like the headache incurred from physically relocating your house. Ultimately, you have to decide if you love your existing house so much that you’re not willing to explore the unknown entity of living in a new one.