Are Building Supplies Going Up in 2026? What It Means for New Construction Around Toledo

Yes, and not evenly. The price builders pay for everything that goes into a new house was up 7.8 percent in August over the same month a year earlier, per the National Association of Home Builders reading of federal producer price data. Strip out energy and the goods themselves were up 5.1 percent. Energy inputs were up 46.2 percent. Diesel by itself was up 77.8 percent. Meanwhile the median new home sold in the Midwest last year went for $155.19 per finished square foot, which is about what it went for in 2022.

Those two facts do not fit together, and the space between them is where your house gets built.

I sold roofs, siding, windows, gutters and downspouts before I ever sold a house. I look at a builder spec sheet the way somebody else looks at a comp sheet. When the cost of a wall goes up and the price of the house cannot, I know which line items move first, because I used to sell the cheaper version of them.

Are Building Supplies Going Up in 2026?

Yes. The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks a producer price index for inputs to new residential construction. In August 2026 that index was up 7.8 percent over August 2025, and up 1.1 percent in the month alone. Goods excluding energy were up 5.1 percent. Services were up 7.8 percent. Energy was up 46.2 percent.

For the wider construction economy the number is worse. The Associated General Contractors put construction input costs up 8.9 percent year over year in August, with nonresidential running hotter than residential.

So the headline is real. The detail underneath it is where the useful part lives, because "building supplies" is not one thing and it did not all move together.

Which Building Materials Went Up the Most This Year?

Energy and metals carried almost all of it. Year over year change through August 2026.

Input	Change since August 2025	Series or source
No. 2 diesel fuel	up 77.8%	NAHB reading of BLS
Copper wire and cable	up 27.2%	BLS WPU10260314
Steel mill products	up 23.4%	BLS WPU1017
Nonferrous wire and cable	up 19.6%	NAHB reading of BLS
Softwood veneer and plywood	up 12.5%	NAHB reading of BLS
Softwood lumber	up 11.8%	BLS WPU0811
Asphalt felts and coatings	up 5.9%	BLS WPU136
Prepared asphalt roofing and siding	up 3.9%	BLS WPU1361
Ready mix concrete	up 2.3%	BLS WPU1333
Gypsum products	up 0.2%	BLS WPU1371

Read that table twice. Drywall did not move. Concrete barely moved. What moved is wire, steel, lumber and the fuel to haul all of it. That means the increase is concentrated in the structure, the mechanicals and the freight, which are exactly the parts of a house you cannot see once it is finished.

One honest note on lumber. NAHB publishes softwood lumber at 13.0 percent year over year. Computing it straight off the BLS series gives 11.8 percent. I could not determine which sub series NAHB uses, so both numbers are above with the source named. Either way it is double digits.

Do Tariffs Add to the Price of a New House?

Four actions are live right now and they touch a new house in different places.

1. A Section 232 tariff of 10 percent on imported timber and lumber, effective October 14, 2025.
2. A Section 232 tariff on imported kitchen cabinets and vanities at 25 percent, scheduled to rise to 50 percent on January 1, 2026.
3. Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum and copper at 50 percent on primary articles and 25 percent on derivative articles, effective April 6, 2026, and now applied to the entire customs value rather than the metal content alone.
4. Antidumping and countervailing duties on Canadian softwood lumber at a combined 35.16 percent, still in effect. Commerce issued a preliminary result in April 2026 that would cut that to 24.83 percent. It has not taken effect, and only final results do.

What that costs per house is harder to pin down than most articles let on. The figure everybody quotes is $10,900 per home. That comes from an April 2025 NAHB and Wells Fargo builder survey, NAHB has not revised it, and its chief economist said on the record in December 2025 that they are waiting for the rules to settle before publishing a new one. So it is the last published estimate, not a 2026 number, and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

What builders themselves reported is more current. In the July 2026 NAHB and Wells Fargo survey, builders put their material cost increase at a median of 6.7 percent over the prior year, with 72.9 percent reporting increases of up to 15 percent.

If Materials Cost More, Why Is Price Per Square Foot Flat?

Because the buyer sets the ceiling.

The Census Bureau publishes the median price per square foot of floor area for new single homes sold, by region. For the Midwest it runs $156.28 in 2022, $156.25 in 2023, $154.04 in 2024 and $155.19 in 2025. Four years, no movement. That figure excludes the value of the improved lot, so it is close to a pure read on the structure.

Nationally the picture is the same or softer. The median sales price of a new home sold in July 2026 was $393,800, down from $397,300 a year earlier. Months of supply of new homes sat at 9.6. Single-family completions in August ran 10.4 percent below July.

Put the two sides together. Inputs up 7.8 percent. Output price per foot flat for four years. Nearly ten months of unsold new homes on the ground. A builder in that position has three moves: eat the margin, shrink the house, or change what goes in it. Most pick some of the second and third.

What Gets Cut When a Builder's Costs Go Up?

This is the part I care about, and it is the part a listing photo will never tell you.

The window package goes first, almost every time. Double hung to single hung. A better glass package to a base one. The spacer between the panes changes and nobody mentions it. I sold windows long enough to know the price spread inside one manufacturer's own catalog is wider than most buyers imagine, and every one of them says the brand name on the sticker.

Siding gauge drops. Thinner vinyl reads fine on move in day and reads differently after eight winters on the west elevation. Trim detail simplifies. Soffit gets the cheaper perforation.

Downspout runs get shortened, because pipe and labor cost money, and the water ends up closer to the foundation than it should. That one is free to check and almost nobody does.

Then the house itself gets smaller. When price per foot cannot move, square footage is the lever that is left.

None of this is a scandal and none of it is any one company. It is arithmetic. Costs went up, the ceiling did not, and something in the middle has to give. My job is to tell you which something, before you sign, not after the drywall is up.

What Should You Look At Before You Sign a Build Contract?

Seven things, in this order.

1. Get the spec sheet and the allowance schedule in writing before you sign, not at the design center afterward.
2. Get the window brand, series and glass package named on paper. Not "energy efficient windows."
3. Ask the siding gauge and who carries the finish warranty, the builder or the manufacturer.
4. Walk the downspouts and ask where the water is engineered to go. Then look at the grade.
5. Read the warranty by term. Ask what is covered at one year, at two, and at ten, and what voids it.
6. Hire your own inspection before drywall goes up and again before closing. The pre drywall one is the whole point, and you only get that window once. I wrote up how that works in new construction home inspections around Toledo.
7. Ask what the tax bill becomes once the finished house lands on the tax list, not what the listing shows today.

I am not a home inspector and you still need one. What I can do is walk a house and tell you whether the materials and the workmanship are what the contract said they would be, and where the shortcut is if there is one.

Is New Construction Still Worth It Around Toledo?

Depends entirely on what you are comparing it to and what you accept in the spec.

The inventory here is concentrated. Most of what is being built in this region sits in Perrysburg and Sylvania, with Holland, Oregon and Waterville behind them. I broke the current listings down town by town, with the premium over resale per finished foot, in the new construction pricing breakdown, and you can see what is standing right now on the new construction page. If you want to know who is putting them up, the builder list is here.

What is worth understanding is that the cost pressure in this article does not show up as a higher sticker. It shows up as a smaller house, a thinner window, a shorter downspout and a longer build. Price is the one thing the market keeps flat. Everything else is negotiable, and most of it is negotiable in the builder's favor unless somebody is reading the contract on your side.

Most people buying new construction here have a house to sell first, and the timing on that is its own problem. If that is you, start with what your current house is worth before you sign anything with a completion date on it.

Send me the plan, the spec sheet and the allowance schedule and I will mark up the line items that move, the ones the design center will try to upgrade you on, and the two or three that actually matter ten years out. No charge and no obligation.

Adam Geuy, Realtor - Blacktree Realty. ABR, PSA, SRS. Greater Toledo, Ohio. 419.540.8659.