Shopping for a new home? Are you ready to renovate your kitchen or install a new deck? You will pay more.
The tariffs of the Trump government for imported goods from Canada, Mexico and China –Some already exist, others will be effective in a few weeks– Already lead the costs for building materials used for new projects for residential and house renovation projects.
According to the National Association of Home Builders, the costs for the construction of a family home in the USA in the United States are predicted to increase costs. Such costs are usually passed on to the buyer in the form of higher prices, which could affect demand at a time when the US apartment market is still embedded and many builders have to offer costly incentives for sales.
We buy houses in San Francisco, which buys excluded houses and then usually renovates and sells them, increases prices for its renovated properties between 7% and 12%. This is even more Canadian wood than usual even after saving 52,000 US dollars by storing 62%.
“The uncertainty about how long these tariffs will continue was the most difficult aspect of our planning,” said CEO MAMTA Saini.
Bad timing for builders
The time of the tariffs could not be worse for home builders and the conversion industry for home, as this is usually the most busy season for the sale of homes. The view of a trade war used the stock exchange and inspired the worries about the economy that could lead many potential buyers to stay on the side.
“Increasing costs due to tariffs for imports will leave only a few options for the builders,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realor.com. “You can choose to pass on higher costs to consumers, which mean higher property prices or try to use less of these materials, which means smaller houses.”
The prices for building materials, including wood, have increased, even though the White House has postponed its tariffs for some products. The wooden futures rose to 658.71 US dollars per thousand board on March 4 and reached their highest level for more than two years.
The increase is already incurring the costs for construction projects.
Dana Schnipper, partner of the building material supplier JC Ryan in Farmingdale, New York, provided wooden doors and frames for an apartment complex in Nassau County from a company in Canada that costs less than the American equivalent.
Half of the job has already been delivered. As soon as the tariff has come into force, it is applied to the remaining $ 75,000, with the AT-COST sum of $ 19,000 being added. As soon as JC Ryan uses his mark, it means that the customer owes 30,000 US dollars more than originally planned, said Schnipper.
He also assumes that the tariffs will increase the prices for steel components to American manufacturers.
“These prices will never drop,” said Schnipper. “Whatever will happen, these things will be sticky and hopefully we as a small company are good enough that we can absorb some of it. We can definitely absorb everything, so I don’t know. It will be a few interesting months. “
The tariffs by using an alternative to imported building materials are not always an option.
Bar Zakheim, owner of Better Place Design & Build, a contract company in San Diego that specializes in the construction of accessible residential units (ADU), said that Canada is still the best source for wood.
By determining Zakheim in imported wood, he had to increase his prices by about 15% compared to a previous year. It also has 8% fewer jobs compared to the previous year.
“I won’t go in business, but it wants to be a slow and expensive year for us,” he said.
Tabro roller coaster
On March 6, the Trump administration announced a one-month delay of its 25% tariffs for certain imports from Mexico and Canada, including softwood wood. Tariffs of 20% for imports from China are already in force. A tariff of 25% for steel and aluminum imports – 50% for that from Canada – on March 12th.
The tariffs for Mexican and Canadian goods that are to come into force next month will increase the costs for imported building materials by more than 3 billion US dollars. In addition to a tariff of 14.5% for Canadian wood, which was previously imposed by the USA and increased the tariffs on Canadian wood to 39.5%, these price increases would be 39.5%.
President Donald Trump said at Air Force One that he had his plans for tariffs on April 2Nervousness about the economic effects.
“April 2 is a liberating day for our country,” he said. “We get part of the wealth back, which gives away very, very stupid presidents because they had no idea what they were doing.”
The building material costs have already increased by 34% since December 2020.
Builders are dependent on raw materials, devices and many other components produced abroad. About 7.3% of all products used in the house of single -family houses and housing are imported. Of these, almost a quarter come from Canada and Mexico, according to the Nahb.
Both nations also make up 70% of the imports of two important household materials: wood and plaster. Canadian wood is used in everything, from frame to cupboards and furniture. The Mexican plaster is used to do drywall.
Over and beyond Raw materials, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioning systems and a number of other house components are produced in Mexico and China, which is also an important source of steel and aluminum.
The tariffs will mean higher prices for buyers of homes, said Dent Johnson, President of True Value Hardware, who runs more than 4,000 independent hardware business.
“The reality is that many products will eventually be affected on the shelves of their local hardware store,” he said in an explanation by e -mail to the Associated Press.
Frightening effect
Confusion about the timing and the scope of the tariffs and its effects on the economy could have a greater impact on the new home market than higher prices.
“If consumers cannot plan if builders cannot plan, it will be very difficult to know how to evaluate products because they do not know what price they have to postpone it,” said Carl Reichardt, a homebuilding analyst at BIG. “If people are worried about their work that worried about the future, it is very difficult to make the decision to buy a new house, regardless of the price.”
The uncertainty created by the Trump government’s tariffs will probably lead to an increasing volatility for the sale of homes and the new house construction this year, Robert Dietz, the chief economist of the Nahb.
However, since it can take several months for a house to be built, the larger effects of the costs from building materials will take place “on the street”, said Dietz.
The impact tariffs for consumers are already obvious at Slutsky Lumber in Ellenville, NY
“There are not so many people who are preparing for spring as they are usually,” said co -owner Jonathan Falcon. “It seems that people are only reducing expenses.”
Falcon also fears that small companies and its difficulties will have a hard time taking the effects of tariffs.
“This is exactly like another thing that becomes more difficult for small wooden stables than the big boys and simply continue to drive like us so as not to do it,” he said.
This story was originally on Fortune.com
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