Both crude oil and steel prices surged to new record highs during the second quarter, giving inflation a major boost. However, the full impact on construction’s cost indexes, as well as the economy’s general inflation rate, are still to be felt.
“In the last three months we tracked a 22% increase in the cost of fabricated structural steel for buildings in the Mid-Atlantic region and about 13% in the rest of the country,” says Steven Plotner, a senior engineer with R.S. Means, Kingston, Mass. “But those increases won’t hit our index until the third quarter.” Plotner expects higher steel prices to continue pushing cost indexes after that. “These price hikes are not over yet,” he says