Residential building material prices continued to experience elevated growth, according to the latest Producer Price Index release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Price growth has been above 3.0% since June this year, despite continued weakness in the new residential construction market. Across building materials, metal products continue to experience price increases, while ready-mix concrete and softwood lumber have experienced price declines over the past year.

The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.2% in November, after rising 0.1% in October. The index for final demand goods increased 0.9% in November. Over 80% of the November increase is due to prices for final demand energy, which was up 4.6% in November. This index for final demand for services was unchanged in November.

The price index for inputs to new residential construction rose 0.1% in November and was up 4.2% from last year. The price of goods used in new residential construction was up 0.4% over the month and 3.4% from last year. Meanwhile, the price for services was down 0.4% over the month and up 5.5% from last year.

Input Goods

The goods component has a larger importance to the inputs to residential construction price index, representing around 60%. On a monthly basis, the price of input goods to new residential construction was up 0.4% in November.

The input goods to residential construction index can be further broken down into two separate components, one measuring energy inputs with the other measuring remaining goods. The latter of these two components simply represents building materials used in residential construction, which makes up around 93% of the goods index.

Energy input prices rose 3.8% in November and were 2.0% higher than one year ago. Building material prices were up 0.2% in September and up 3.5% compared to one year ago. The 3.5% year-over-year increase is the largest increase since the 4.9% experienced back in January of 2023.

The largest year-over-year price increases continue to show in metal products. Topping the list in November was metal molding and trim, with prices up 48.2% from last year. Two key inputs, ready-mix concrete and softwood lumber, experienced price decreases from last year. Ready-mix concrete prices are down 0.7% compared to a year ago, likely a result of the recent stagnation in construction spending. Softwood lumber prices were down 8.0% in November from last year as prices continue to remain low.

Input Services

Prices for service inputs to residential construction reported a decline of 0.4% in November. On a year-over-year basis, service input prices were up 5.6%. The price index for service inputs to residential construction can be broken out into three separate components: a trade services component, a transportation and warehousing services component, and a services excluding trade, transportation and warehousing component (other services).

The most significant component is trade services (around 60%), followed by other services (around 29%), and finally transportation and warehousing services (around 11%). The largest component, trade services, was up 7.7% from a year ago. The transportation and warehousing services rose 4.2% while prices for other services were up 1.5% over the year.

Expanded Inputs to New Construction Data

Within the PPI that BLS publishes, new experimental data was recently published regarding inputs to new construction. The data expands existing inputs to industry indexes by incorporating import prices with prices for domestically produced goods and services. With this additional data, users can track how industry input costs are changing among domestically produced products and imported products. This data focuses on new construction, but the complete dataset includes indices across numerous industries that can be found here on BLS website. 

New construction input prices are primarily influenced by domestically produced goods and services, with domestic products accounting for 90% of the weight of the industry index for new construction. Imported goods make up the remaining 10% of the index.  

The latest available data, for August 2025, showed that domestically produced goods continue to have faster price growth compared to imported goods used in new construction. On a year-over-year basis, the index for domestic goods increased 2.5%, while prices for imported goods fell 0.7% over the same period.