| Another major criteria in choosing between steel and concrete is the size of the open spans that you want. Long spans are cheaper when built with steel rather than concrete, so steel is preferred in office buildings, where you want lots of open space. In residential construction, this is much less of an issue, so concrete is the choice material.
I believe this was mentioned earlier, but time is such a major factor as well. You can pour a floor every 4 days (or 2 days in NYC), but steel takes forever to go from the drawing board to the site. Most owners want their building ASAP, especially residential developers, so they can lease/sell the space and start collecting money & interest. In fact, some are so anxious that people start living in the place before the building has been completed. Where I'm working, we had residents move in this past September, but we won't be done for another few months. Time is money, and money is what the owner/client cares about the most usually, as long as it can be built. |