With demand soaring and materials in short supply, the cost of building a home has risen sharply in the last year.
With prices for construction materials soaring during the pandemic, write Marcy Nicholson, Dave Merrill, and Cedric Sam for Bloomberg, building a home is more expensive than ever. "There are any number of factors at play—from rock-bottom mortgage rates to city dwellers’ rush to the suburbs to shortages of materials—but the simplest explanation is that there is just too much demand for builders and their suppliers to handle. All of this makes housing an extreme manifestation of the inflationary pressures percolating through the booming U.S. economy."
Costs for some materials, like concrete, were already rising sharply before the pandemic hit. Lumber, "the biggest pain point by far," has jumped in price by as much as 400%. "It’s not just the two-by-fours that go into the framing. Builders are paying up and waiting longer for oriented strand board (OSB), a lower-cost stand-in for plywood. The price of these panels soared to a rare premium over plywood in October, and they’ve since been in short supply." As builders struggle to make up the increases, "buyers are on the hook for the higher costs," and "[w]ith raw materials prices continuing to surge around the world, the pressure on builders to increase costs is likely to grow stronger."
"This could be industry killing," worries Steve Martinez, the owner of a construction business in Boise, Idaho. The final cost of one of his home models, the Baybrook, has risen 61% from 2019.
FULL STORY: Building a Home in the U.S. Has Never Been More Expensive
Oregon Passes Exemption to Urban Growth Boundary
Cities have a one-time chance to acquire new land for development in a bid to increase housing supply and affordability.
Where Urban Design Is Headed in 2024
A forecast of likely trends in urban design and architecture.
Savannah: A City of Planning Contrasts
From a human-scales, plaza-anchored grid to suburban sprawl, the oldest planned city in the United States has seen wildly different development patterns.
Washington Tribes Receive Resilience Funding
The 28 grants support projects including relocation efforts as coastal communities face the growing impacts of climate change.
Adaptive Reuse Bills Introduced in California Assembly
The legislation would expand eligibility for economic incentives and let cities loosen regulations to allow for more building conversions.
LA's Top Parks, Ranked
TimeOut just released its list of the top 26 parks in the L.A. area, which is home to some of the best green spaces around.
City of Rochester
Boston Harbor Now
City of Bellevue
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
City of Birmingham, Alabama
City of Laramie, Wyoming
Colorado Department of Local Affairs
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.