Share of New Homes with Patios Continues to Climb

The share of new homes with patios increased to yet another record high in 2023. Of the roughly 950,000 single-family homes started during the year, 63.7% came with patios. This is up from 63.3% in 2022 and marks the eighth consecutive year the percentage set a new record high. The source for these numbers is NAHB tabulation of data from the Survey of Construction (conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau with partial funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development).

Historically, fewer than half of new homes came with patios during the 2008-2011 period of extreme weakness in housing markets. But soon thereafter, the share jumped to 52.4% in 2012 and has been climbing ever since. The percentage has now increased in thirteen of the past fourteen years. The only exception was 2015, when the percentage was unchanged.

While patios for new homes have generally become more common over time, the parts of the country where they tend to be most common have remained consistent. At the low end, only 17% percent of new single-family homes built in New England and 20% in the Middle Atlantic came with patios in 2023. At the high end, the incidence of patios on new homes was over 80% in the West South Central and close to 70% in the South Atlantic and Mountain divisions. The geographic tendencies are similar to the ones reported in last year’s post.

Additional detail on the characteristics of new-home patios is available from the Annual Builder Practices Survey (BPS) conducted by Home Innovation Research Labs.

For the U.S. as a whole, the 2024 BPS report (based on homes built in 2023, like the SOC-based statistics cited above) shows that the average size of a new-home patio is about 290 square feet, but with considerable geographic variation. The average is over 400 square feet in the East South Central and about 380 square feet in New England; but under 200 square feet in the West South Central, and only a little over 200 square feet in the adjacent West North Central division.

In most parts of the country, poured concrete dominates all other building materials used in new-home patios. In the East South Central, for instance, poured concrete accounts for over 90% of new-home patios on a square-foot basis. To the extent that there are exceptions, they occur on the east coast. In the South Atlantic, concrete and brick pavers each have about a quarter of the market, and poured concrete has less than half. In New England, the market is more or less equally divided among poured concrete, concrete pavers and natural stone. In the Mid-Atlantic, brick pavers are the most popular choice for new-home patios by a substantial margin.