ORLANDO, Fla — With more tariffs looming, businesses across central Florida are watching. Action 9 is continuing to investigate the tariff tension and what it could mean for home builders and home buyers.
President Trump is looking to fix what he says are unbalanced trade agreements. Since taking office, he’s already slapped additional tariffs on China, and for now, Canada and Mexico are next in line.
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This has a lot of people in the construction industry nervous and has many others paying close attention. They know if the price of building materials coming into the U.S. goes up, it’s going to impact the way they do business.
With sandy beaches and warm weather, the Sunshine State is still a hot spot for population growth. Home builders are working to meet the demand for more housing.
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That’s something Chassity Vega, CEO of the Greater Orlando Builders Association or GOBA says is extremely important. GOBA and its member businesses have been watching what’s going on in Washington closely especially when it comes to tariffs.
“But what does that look like? How do we partner with our suppliers, with our trades? More than likely, we’re going to have a meeting if that does happen to figure it all out,” Chassity Vega told Action 9 Consumer Investigator Jeff Deal.
While they are taking a wait and see approach, the biggest concern for the building industry is with lumber since it’s such a big part of Florida homes.
Vega said, “The minute I hear tariffs. I immediately was just... lumber guys, lumber guys, lumber guys. I was picking up the phone.”
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In Florida, most our lumber comes from Europe and not Canada. But builders who get their supplies from Canada will likely look elsewhere should tariffs hit Canadian lumber. That could drive demand for lumber from other places and cause those prices to rise, too. Ultimately, the extra cost of that wood and any other building supplies will get rolled into the price of homes. For home builders it could mean scaling back and building fewer homes at a time when new homes are already tough to move. For home buyers, it could mean higher prices on new and existing homes.
Consumer Advisor Clark Howard said even remodeling companies will face challenges. Some of them may struggle to price jobs since they don’t know how tariffs will impact the price of materials down the road.
Howard said, “So, just know that most items, the tariffs will add a small additional cost potentially to what you have to pay as a consumer.”
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Chassity Vega is optimistic though. She hopes if we feel the pain from tariffs that it’s short-lived. And she hopes President Trump and other lawmakers will continue to look at other ways to try to make homes more affordable like by removing some regulatory burdens or by tackling interest rates.
“We need to constantly have attainable housing, and we need to find a way to get there,” Vega said.
She added, if home builders have to scale back the size of their jobs, it will trickle down to mean less work for smaller contractors and workers in our community.
Some smaller businesses told Action 9 they might have to shorten the timeframe on when the price will be good on their bids or put language in the contracts about how changes in material prices could impact the cost of the jobs.
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