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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BubbaFred who wrote (64908)	6/11/2005 6:40:50 PM
From: energyplay	Respond to of 74559

I think you are right, labor costs are pretty well contained. Materials prices could be difficult to factor out because of lots of changes. For Materials for houses there's also the upgrade factor. In 1890, most detached US houses did not have indoor bathrooms. Today, about 1/3 of new houses have a "Master Bath" that's a marble and tile extravaganza, desinged to the taste of Donald Trump or Liberace. Same houses have a kitchen granite or Corian or whatever counter tops, and walls of cabinets. Easily 85% pf new homes have central air conditioning. ********* There has been a shift to labor saving techniques - drywall / Sheetrock being a huge time saver, and then pre-assembled roof trusses- a REALLY good idea, stronger, made better, etc. Some bathroom module assembly. Concrete slabs get poured by concrete pumps through long cranes that reach every where, instead of guys with wheelbarrows dumping loads from trucks. **** Also, people are having house built further away from major cities, and in Western States which are sometimes further away from suppliers. Ray - Is there much of a cost difference between somewhere like Portland or Corvallis, and Bend, and maybe somewhere further out, like Pendelton ?