Will building costs ever go down?

[Zooforhouse]

Just that really. Know no one has a crystal ball but…..

No. Trades are in short supply and material costs will only get more expensive.

Additionally it’s now more difficult and there’s little reason for skilled European trades to come here.

No.
I don’t think prices of anything will go down, petrol, food etc.

If I could get a plumber in to actually do some pretty basic work, I wouldn't give 2 hoots about the cost, but no, I don't think we are ever likely to see costs come down. We are in the shit big time.

Definitely not, unfortunately.

Nope, shortage of skilled people to actually do the job, labour costs, material etc

Just waiting for a correction in the housing market as the cost of living bites plus the restrictions now being lifted post CV 19 😳😔

They'll have to be more competitive to get work once we are in recession and people start reigning in their spending.

I don't think that will be a limiting factor. I think you have overestimated the amount of skilled labour and underestimated the number of people who just have money, recession or no recession.

I guess we'll find out.

It'll be an unusual recession if it doesn't lead to reduced spending.

Not until we start training our youngsters in manual trades again, I.e. the trades, factory work, etc. Costs won’t come down when we import so much made overseas and have a shortage of people able to do skilled manual work.

Lots of people working in offices which closed during the peak of the pandemic saved loads of money; no commuting, no lunches, no going out, no holidays.

Add to that the limited supply of homes coming onto the market; many are choosing to use their saved cash to extend their current home rather than upsizing externally.

Brexit forced lots of tradespeople to go home, the pandemic kept them from coming back. The trades who stayed or are based here can therefore command a premium.

Materials have increased in price, and demand for trades is off the scale. I wanted a quote for a bathroom back in January, the earliest companies could come and look (not do the work) was May.

In summary, there's only one direction prices are going, and it's not down.

No. I work in construction project management and we are bracing for the storm of inflation over the next few years. I'm pushing my jobs as hard as I can to get them to tender and at least partially fix the price. Quotes for items that would usually be held for 28 days are now 24 hours as prices are rising so rapidly. It's not a great short term outlook...

No but you need to push employer for an inflation matching pay rise otherwise the whole supply chain is just going to collapse. If everybody else’s prices are rising the price of you needs to rise as well

"No but you need to push employer for an inflation matching pay rise otherwise the whole supply chain is just going to collapse."

Not possible for anyone in the public sector (18% of working population).

No, instead in the long run wages will just continue to increase and make average prices even highter.

Well 90,000 of them will apparently be in a great position to negotiate a pay rise when they move to the private sector, by force

Well that's true. But still leaves 5.6 million of them.

Some areas prices will fall due to recession and people not spending on non essentials.. Builders and trades who need work will quote accordingly.

Even now high labour prices are not all areas.

Materials prices, who knows?

Builders and trades who need work will quote accordingly

Or do what they normally do and just travel to well paying work with their in demand skills.

I mean, hang on for building work if you want to, if you think that wages will fall. I just don't think that it will happen until we get thousand more youngsters trained and develop far more training routes to enable that to happen.

I've haven't lived through a recession yet where trades went unscathed. People hold off on non-essential building work and don't move house unless they need to. There will always be people with money, and people in secure jobs, but when a significant % start feeling the pinch, or worrying about their job, trades have to start quoting competitively to get the jobs. Nothing lasts forever, not even the current bubble, and prices can't climb forever. Materials are different as will depend on global issues.

You haven't lived through it because we trained enough tradespeople to sustain the industry. But we've spent decades telling kids to go to uni, under funding apprenticeships and importing skilled labour - skilled labour which has up and left leaving domestic, commercial and industrial arenas competing for the drastically reduced pool which remains.

The construction industry has always been boom or bust. Prices will adjust but the question is 'when?'.
Property is about timing and having the opportunities to make the most of timing.

And there are early signs that they're beginning to return.

And there are always reasons why 'this recession will be different.'

I haven't got a dog in the game because I'm not looking at any sort of building work in the near future. I just think that it is worth tempering the panic about spiralling prices a little. High energy prices are here for a long time, as is food inflation, due to global events beyond our control. But house prices and the costs associated with doing repairs/improvements will stabilise imo.