"It is really kind of scary," says Thad Pirtle, vice president of Traylor Bros. Inc., Evansville, Ind. He runs the contractors $175-million equipment fleet and says he is "very, very concerned about inflation" going into next year.
Equipment prices shot up over the past several months and are likely to hold steady in 2005. A cooling residential sector could bring some price relief although delivery times still are tight through mid-year, observers say.