Costs of home building products ‘going to take some time’ to drop: SRHBA CEO

It’s costing more — about $30,000 more on average — to build a house these days.

Chris Guerette, the CEO of the Saskatoon & Region Home Builders’ Association (SRHBA), said the Canadian Home Builders Association predicted that — with lumber price increases alone — folks will spend around $30,000 more on average per home.

Guerette joined Brent Loucks on Monday morning to discuss the rise in material prices.

“It’s a combination of two things. It’s the pandemic, and I don’t think anybody would have predicted a year ago there would be such a high demand. Especially with lumber, we’re seeing that the renovation market had an impact as well,” she said.

Guerette said more and more people are looking to build decks and fences, citing renovation permits increased by 40 per cent in Saskatoon this year.

“All of that has put a really big crunch on supplies,” she added.

With the supply chain slowed, and the building industry focused on North American supply, a similar yet larger situation is also happening in the United States.

Guerette said some of the builds may not be moving as quickly as the customer wants, but it has been creating some frustrating processes.

“I think, at this point, while we can’t impact the supply chain, what we can do is remind our governments that this is definitely not the time to bring in any kind of additional processes,” she said, pointing to permit timelines or anything at all to get the house to the market.

When it comes to how long we should be waiting to see a return to typical pricing, Guerette had an idea.

“It’s going to take some time to get back to pre-COVID reality,” she said. “It’s going to require, this year, a lot of patience.”

With the PST rebate active, Guerette said the time is now to build new. But she warned that Saskatonians should keep an eye on inventory levels when it comes to the housing market.