The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its producer price index report for July. It showed that overall prices for processed goods for intermediate demand were unchanged from June but that they increased 6.8 percent from a year earlier. This compares with a 2.9 percent rise in the all-items consumer price index (CPI) in the last 12 months ending in June.
The BLS index of materials and components for construction fell 0.1 percent from June, 2018 but was 6.3 percent higher than a year earlier.
Multihousing Pro (MHP) compiled the BLS reported price changes for our standard list of construction commodities. These are commodities whose prices directly impact the cost of constructing an apartment building. The two right hand columns of the table provide the percent change in the price of the commodity from a year earlier (12 Mo PC Change) and the percent change in price from June, 2018 (1 Mo PC Change).
Our construction material prices generally rose less sharply in July than they did in June. Exceptions to this were oriented strand-board (OSB) and copper wire, which experienced large price increases in July. Soft plywood products and nails also experienced significant price increases. On the other hand, several of the construction material prices we track experienced declines, most notably softwood lumber which had experienced some of the most rapid price increases over the last 12 months.
| Commodity | 12 Mo PC Change | 1 Mo PC Change |
| Softwood lumber | 19.5 | -2.5 |
| Hardwood lumber | 6.1 | -1.9 |
| General millworks | 2.3 | 0.2 |
| Soft plywood products | 35.1 | 1.9 |
| Waferboard and oriented strand-board (OSB) | 20.2 | 7.0 |
| Hot rolled steel bars, plates and structural shapes | 18.1 | 0.5 |
| Copper wire and cable | 12.8 | 3.8 |
| Power wire and cable | 17.9 | 0.9 |
| Builder’s hardware | 1.5 | 0.4 |
| Plumbing fixtures and fittings | 2.9 | 0.0 |
| Enameled iron and metal sanitary ware | 1.7 | 0.0 |
| Furnaces and heaters | 4.8 | 0.9 |
| Sheet metal AC ducts and stove pipe | 0.2 | 0.0 |
| Electrical Lighting fixtures | 2.4 | -0.3 |
| Nails | 17.3 | 2.0 |
| Major appliances | 3.1 | -0.3 |
| Flat glass | 6.8 | -0.8 |
| Ready mix concrete | 3.9 | -1.5 |
| Asphalt roofing and siding | 6.9 | -0.4 |
| Gypsum products | 4.1 | 1.3 |
| Mineral wool insulation | 1.6 | -0.4 |
The chart below illustrates the price changes for softwood lumber, OSB and soft plywood over the past year and a half relative to their prices in January, 2017. The recent fall in the price of softwood lumber and the continued surge in the price of OSB are the most notable changes in this chart from the one published last month.
The full BLS report can be found here.
