Thanks to the influx of people moving to the area and pent-up demand from last year’s pause in multifamily construction, Dallas’s commercial real estate is in a hyper-growth mode with many construction projects underway. Despite this generally positive state of affairs, it’s evident that our industry as a whole is experiencing macroeconomic influences on construction costs.

While I personally thought there may have been a temporary pause or even a reduction in construction costs due to COVID-19, and the resulting delay in construction starts in Q2 of 2020, this has not happened.

Volatile Costs Rattle Developers

The main headline throughout 2021 has been the parabolic rise and subsequent fall in the price of lumber, with prices escalating to a high of more than 300 percent of what they were in April 2020.

Then in mid-July, we saw lumber prices crash so much so that it started to give hope to developers and builders. Although lumber certainly is consuming the headlines, it is not the only area of concern. Collectively, the cost of building supplies has increased by close to 13 percent over the past year, according to Bisnow. Click to read more at www.dmagazine.com.