Price of the Brick (& Other Construction Inputs) Going Up

Construction Trend Tuesday (#30)

Construction Trend Tuesday covers one (hopefully) interesting industry trend in a quick, two minute read. You can access the archive of CTT posts here.

Construction materials prices have risen 3.5% since the end of 2024, ending a two-year period of much-needed stability.

Sure, that’s not an earthshattering increase, especially compared to what happened from 2020-2022, but it’s not ideal, either.

First, construction materials prices have risen nearly twice as fast as economywide prices over the past decade, and renewed escalation will further strain project budgets. This is, of course, made worse by stubbornly high borrowing costs.

Second, this increase has occurred at a time when construction spending is already declining. The rise in materials prices would be worse if the industry wasn’t contracting, thereby constraining demand for inputs. This is increasingly a stagflationary U.S. construction economy.

Third, tariffs are certainly playing a big role here, making imported materials more expensive and giving domestic producers greater pricing power. It’s nearly impossible to predict how tariffs will affect prices throughout a supply chain—too many economic actors, each eating costs or passing them on in their own discreet way—and that uncertainty is compounded by the fact that our trade policy is ever changing.

What’s Next

This week brings us some private sector job data, an early peak at December’s consumer confidence, and an important update on the manufacturing sector. We’ll cover that and a whole lot more in Week in Review, our every-Friday post that covers all the economic news and data in a breezy, five minute read.

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