If you’re like most homeowners, you’re probably thinking that all the COVID induced supply chain issues will be corrected in the new year, along with a price correction on your future home improvement projects. This article will help you navigate the building products that are likely to have price corrections and those that will not.
While we are finally seeing more consistent lead times, the building material supply chain is far from being back to normal, and in fact, is now longer than we’ve seen yet. Window and door delays are especially running longer. They are just more consistent in the delay times from where we were a few months ago, when they seemed to change on a weekly basis. Now they’re just more consistently long for the same amount of wait time.
Industry news headlines are dominated with the cost fluctuations of raw materials, commodities, like lumber and steel which sharply increased as supply lessened. We can almost always count on commodity materials to sharply fluctuate up and down during times of shortages, taking steep increases, followed by price corrections as supply constraints are temporarily fixed. What we’ve never seen; however, is a decrease in pricing on finished building materials … siding, roofing, windows, doors and composite decking. In our 25-year history, we’ve never had a vendor come back with a “price correction” or a price reduction based upon supply chain improvements (or any other reason for that matter). When hurricane season hits, you can always count on product shortages and price increases then also. COVID induced shortages will most likely follow that pattern, and that’s what we’ve already been seeing.
If you’ve seen recent news about the oil spill at Long Beach, then you also know that many the building products we’ve long waited for is now stuck out at sea, causing even further delays.
What we’ve found to be true is that today’s price is always better than tomorrow’s price. While the lead time to get your products may improve, the price never does.
So, what does this mean for you? If you’re considering a roofing, window, door, siding or composite deck project, those projects will absolutely be more affordable today than waiting for supply chain corrections later. Said more simply, your project will be more affordable today than it will be in 2022 … even if you’re project doesn’t start until 2022. At EXOVATIONS, we provide a fixed-bid quote that becomes your contract. The contract you sign today will price lock you into any potential price increases that might occur while we wait for your products to be delivered. Many contractors will add an escalation clause to your contract that essentially allows them to ask you for more money when the price increased on your delayed materials. We don’t believe in having you sign anything other than a fixed bid completed project quote, even if your labor and/or product pricing goes up during your project. Why? Because that’s incredibly stressful to now know what your project will actually cost you until it’s completed. No way! EXOVAITONS is all about making your home exterior project experience as stress-free as possible, which includes committing to today’s pricing on tomorrow’s material costs.