Stillwater · build cost

What it costs to build a house in Stillwater, NY

A standard-finish house in Stillwater runs about $204–268/sq ft all in, which on a 1,800 sq ft build works out to roughly $370k–480k with general-contractor margin already in it. The part people leave out is what you pay before that, because the smallest conforming residential lot in the Town of Stillwater is 0.11 acres and vacant land here carries a median assessed value of $13,573 an acre, so the dirt alone is around $1,493 and the whole thing lands near $370k–485k. What the code will let you put on that lot is rarely the binding constraint, since even T5 Gateway Transect Zone (the urban core of the transect and the densest district in Stillwater: 5,000 SF PER DWELLING UNIT, 75% MAXIMUM LOT COVERAGE — the highest in the Town by fifteen points — 50 ft required road frontage, and 3 stories or 40 feet in height with the storey count binding independently. THE SETBACKS ARE STATED AS RANGES STARTING AT ZERO, WHICH IS THE POINT OF THE DISTRICT: the front setback is '0 TO 10 FEET, OR 15 FEET WITH OUTDOOR DINING OR A PLAZA' and the side is '0 TO 5 FEET', with a 5 ft rear. Both are recorded at their zero floor because zero is genuinely permitted — this is party-wall, build-to-the-sidewalk urbanism, and the upper end of each range is an allowance rather than a requirement. The explicit fifteen-foot option purchased by providing outdoor dining or a plaza is a rare piece of incentive zoning in this county and is worth using deliberately rather than treating as a maximum to avoid. MINIMUM LOT SIZE IN STILLWATER IS STATED PER DWELLING UNIT, NOT PER LOT. Table 2's column reads 'Minimum Lot Size' but nearly every entry is expressed 'per dwelling unit', which makes it a density standard: a two-unit building needs twice the figure. Read it as density and not as the size of a buildable lot. Multifamily is available by special permit and the attached accessory dwelling unit is PERMITTED BY RIGHT, though at 5,000 sf per unit with 75% coverage the multifamily route will usually dominate. Agricultural uses, livestock, farm stands and timber harvesting all drop away entirely at this rung — T5 is the only Stillwater district with no working-land use of any kind.), the tightest residential district here, allows a building footprint of roughly 3,594 sq ft on a conforming lot, which is more house than the budget above actually buys. The figures below come out of the same cost engine Aldo uses to price a real parcel, broken out by system and by what a harder site adds, so you can see where the money actually goes.

Land plus build: the real number in Stillwater

Build cost is the half everyone quotes. The other half is the lot, and in the Town of Stillwater the code will not let you build on less than 0.11 acres in its most permissive residential district, so that is the smallest ticket into the town.

Land is roughly 0% of that total in Stillwater. The per-acre figure is the median assessed full market value of vacant residential land across 613 priced parcels here, which is a proxy for what dirt is worth and not an asking price - road-frontage lots that are ready to build on trade above it, and back land without access trades below.

Cost per square foot by finish level

All in, general-contractor margin included, for a slab-on-grade build on a flat and clear lot. The rate holds steady whether you build 1,200 or 2,500 sq ft, which is why the finish level moves a budget more than the size does.

Where the money goes

A standard-finish build at Saratoga County pricing, broken out by trade as dollars per square foot. Foundation and site work here are the slab and flat-lot baseline, so a harder site stacks on top of them.

What moves the number

The baseline assumes the easy case. Each of these stacks on top, per square foot, at Saratoga County pricing:

• Crawlspace instead of slab+$13–20/sq ft
• Full basement instead of slab+$31–49/sq ft
• Moderately sloped or wooded lot+$8.7–16/sq ft
• Steep or ledge-rock site+$22–44/sq ft
• Winter foundation & site work+$2.8–4/sq ft

Whole-project totals

Standard finish, slab on a flat lot, all in and before land. A harder site or a higher finish moves these up.

How much house Stillwater actually lets you build

Every residential district caps how much of the lot the building can cover. Multiply that cap by the district's minimum lot size and you get the largest footprint the code permits on a conforming lot in the Town of Stillwater, which runs from about 3,594 sq ft in T5 Gateway Transect Zone (the urban core of the transect and the densest district in Stillwater: 5,000 SF PER DWELLING UNIT, 75% MAXIMUM LOT COVERAGE — the highest in the Town by fifteen points — 50 ft required road frontage, and 3 stories or 40 feet in height with the storey count binding independently. THE SETBACKS ARE STATED AS RANGES STARTING AT ZERO, WHICH IS THE POINT OF THE DISTRICT: the front setback is '0 TO 10 FEET, OR 15 FEET WITH OUTDOOR DINING OR A PLAZA' and the side is '0 TO 5 FEET', with a 5 ft rear. Both are recorded at their zero floor because zero is genuinely permitted — this is party-wall, build-to-the-sidewalk urbanism, and the upper end of each range is an allowance rather than a requirement. The explicit fifteen-foot option purchased by providing outdoor dining or a plaza is a rare piece of incentive zoning in this county and is worth using deliberately rather than treating as a maximum to avoid. MINIMUM LOT SIZE IN STILLWATER IS STATED PER DWELLING UNIT, NOT PER LOT. Table 2's column reads 'Minimum Lot Size' but nearly every entry is expressed 'per dwelling unit', which makes it a density standard: a two-unit building needs twice the figure. Read it as density and not as the size of a buildable lot. Multifamily is available by special permit and the attached accessory dwelling unit is PERMITTED BY RIGHT, though at 5,000 sf per unit with 75% coverage the multifamily route will usually dominate. Agricultural uses, livestock, farm stands and timber harvesting all drop away entirely at this rung — T5 is the only Stillwater district with no working-land use of any kind.) to 3,594 sq ft in T5 Gateway Transect Zone (the urban core of the transect and the densest district in Stillwater: 5,000 SF PER DWELLING UNIT, 75% MAXIMUM LOT COVERAGE — the highest in the Town by fifteen points — 50 ft required road frontage, and 3 stories or 40 feet in height with the storey count binding independently. THE SETBACKS ARE STATED AS RANGES STARTING AT ZERO, WHICH IS THE POINT OF THE DISTRICT: the front setback is '0 TO 10 FEET, OR 15 FEET WITH OUTDOOR DINING OR A PLAZA' and the side is '0 TO 5 FEET', with a 5 ft rear. Both are recorded at their zero floor because zero is genuinely permitted — this is party-wall, build-to-the-sidewalk urbanism, and the upper end of each range is an allowance rather than a requirement. The explicit fifteen-foot option purchased by providing outdoor dining or a plaza is a rare piece of incentive zoning in this county and is worth using deliberately rather than treating as a maximum to avoid. MINIMUM LOT SIZE IN STILLWATER IS STATED PER DWELLING UNIT, NOT PER LOT. Table 2's column reads 'Minimum Lot Size' but nearly every entry is expressed 'per dwelling unit', which makes it a density standard: a two-unit building needs twice the figure. Read it as density and not as the size of a buildable lot. Multifamily is available by special permit and the attached accessory dwelling unit is PERMITTED BY RIGHT, though at 5,000 sf per unit with 75% coverage the multifamily route will usually dominate. Agricultural uses, livestock, farm stands and timber harvesting all drop away entirely at this rung — T5 is the only Stillwater district with no working-land use of any kind.). Worth checking before you assume zoning is what is limiting the house, because in most districts it is the budget that runs out first.

Footprint is the ground-floor building area, so a second storey buys floor area this number does not constrain, subject to the height limit. Some municipalities write their coverage cap as impervious surface rather than building coverage, which counts the driveway, walks and patio against the same budget and leaves less of it for the house - check which one your district uses before you design to it.

Local rules that move a build budget in Stillwater

• UtilityNational Grid territory. Service run and connection cost depends on distance to the line, which on a rural parcel can be the single largest site expense.
• Short-term rentalsNo local short-term-rental law on record - which is not the same as permission. No short-term-rental provision exists in the Town of Stillwater Zoning Law. Chapter 210 was read in full: § 210-7 Definitions contains no short-term rental, vacation rental or transient-occupancy term (the phrase 'short-term' appears only in the nonconforming-use section, describing short-term interruptions to a use during remodelling or seasonal closure), Table 1 Summary of Allowed Uses lists no such use, and there is no registration or licensing requirement anywhere in the chapter. The only enumerated transient-lodging use is the BED-AND-BREAKFAST, which is a SPECIAL PERMIT in ten of the eleven districts — every district except the Mixed-Use Business District, where it is prohibited outright. That near-universal availability by special permit is the Town's stated position on short-stay lodging, and it is a permit-gated, owner-present use rather than a whole-house short-term rental. Recorded 'unknown' rather than 'prohibited' because the Town has never legislated on short-term rental specifically. Absence of a found STR provision is NOT permission. This matters more than usual in Stillwater because of Saratoga Lake and the Hudson riverfront, where short-term rental demand is real and the Town has not yet addressed it — get a written answer from the Building Department at (518) 664-6148 x215 before underwriting short-term rental income, and note that a Saratoga Lake parcel may also sit inside the Saratoga Lake Watershed Overlay District. Separately, New York State has required every short-term-rental host to register the unit with the State through the county registry since 2025, regardless of what the municipality allows, and Saratoga County HAS adopted a county-level short-term-rental programme: a 3% occupancy tax and a MANDATORY county registry, covering any room or space in a dwelling let for under 30 consecutive days. Registration runs two years, an unregistered host faces fines of up to $500, and the booking platform is separately liable for processing an unregistered listing — so Airbnb and Vrbo will delist. The City of Saratoga Springs runs its own registry alongside it.
• Districts mapped11 zoning districts in the Town of Stillwater.
• Building dept(518) 664-6148 x215
• Zoning last reviewed2026-07-31

Building an accessory unit instead?

An 800 sq ft ADU in Stillwater runs about $200k–260k, and the per-square-foot rate is higher than a full house because the kitchen, bath, panel and heating plant cost the same either way. See what it costs to build an ADU in Stillwater, priced by size.

Cost to build in nearby towns

All Saratoga County towns: Mechanicville (City) · Saratoga Springs (City) · Ballston · Charlton · Clifton Park · Corinth · Day · Edinburg · Galway · Greenfield · Halfmoon · Malta · Milton · Moreau · Northumberland · Providence · Saratoga · Waterford · Wilton · Ballston Spa (Village) · Corinth (Village) · Round Lake (Village) · Schuylerville (Village) · South Glens Falls (Village) · Stillwater (Village) · Victory (Village) · Waterford (Village)

More on Stillwater: Zoning for new construction · ADU rules · Saratoga County build cost

Cost to build in Stillwater: common questions

Construction figures are modeled estimates from Offsite's cost engine in current 2026 dollars, general-contractor margin included, using the Saratoga County regional index. They are planning numbers for decision-support only - not a bid, quote, or guarantee, and not architectural or engineering advice. Zoning figures for the Town of Stillwater come from the municipal code (last reviewed 2026-07-31) and can carry district exceptions and overlays this page does not show. Actual cost depends on the specific parcel, design, site conditions and market at the time you build; verify with the building department at (518) 664-6148 x215 and get a real estimate before you commit. Sources: Offsite / Aldo cost engine (costEngine.js + constants.js); zoning dataset (municipalData.js) ; NYS statewide tax-parcel layer, vacant residential full market value per acre.