Find homes faster You can visualize a square foot as a square with sides one foot in length, which is 12 inches. So, in square inches, a square foot is 12 inches × 12 inches = 144 inches². In everyday terms, a square foot is about the size of a large laptop computer. The NAHB estimates are based on the Survey of Construction (SOC) data. The survey information comes from interviews of builders and owners of the selected new houses. The reported prices are medians, meaning that half of all builders reported higher per square foot prices and the other visit the site half reported prices lower than the median. While the reported median prices cannot reflect the price variability within a division, and even less so within a metro area, they, nevertheless, highlight the regional differences in square foot prices.