Page 35 - HW July 2022

While almost all building sectors showed softening, the big faller in April was the Residential sector with a 34% drop on March levels of planning applications.
Although £3.3 billion’s worth of applications were lodged, this is the weakest level since May 2020.
https://barbour-abi.com
UK tradies are also worried about costs – New research from Eureka called Uncertain Future? Trade Attitudes
to Current Cost Pressures, is the
result of responses from Eureka’s own proprietary database of UK tradespeople, supplemented with support from an independent merchant brand with access to a slightly wider pool of trade types.
The report says the UK tradies’ top three concerns are:
1. Material costs (said 73%)
2. Fuel costs (diesel/petrol) (68%)
3. Material availability/stock (59%).
Unexpectedly, cashflow/not getting paid is a concern for only 19% of respondents.
The materials which have showed the most significant price increases were:
1. Sheet materials (said 68%)
2. Sawn/planed wood (64%)
3. Adhesives/sealants (50%).
Having voiced these concerns, as much as 39% of these tradespeople still have larger order books (4 months out on average) and are probably still riding the crest of 2021’s building and DIY wave.
Still, fully a quarter said they were “unsure” about the future of their business, while 37% said they were “nervous” and their order books are diminishing (2.4 months average) with concerns growing about the rising cost of materials, fuel and cashflows.
With the average cost of filling up a Transit van having passed the £150 mark, how are these tradies looking to adjust? 1. Pass costs onto my customers (70%)
2. Quote on jobs closer to home (39%)
3. More deliveries direct to site (33%).
The second intention is a bit of a surprise.
www.eurekaresearch.co.uk
Prices soar as new build heat comes off
– According to UK direct-to-consumer online marketplace Buildiro.com, the average price of building materials and home improvement supplies in the United Kingdom increased by more than 10% for the June 2022 quarter.
Timber cladding recorded the biggest jump in retail prices with a 15% spike from the previous quarter, while wall and floor tiles increased by an average of 14% and as much as 30% for some product lines across products that Buildiro.com monitors.
Other materials whose prices surged during the period included sawn timber (+13%), vinyl flooring (+10%), and garden-related items including outdoor furniture, paving stones, and hand tools (+6-10%).
“Builders and home-improvement hobbyists in the UK have not been spared the impact of inflation, supply-chain challenges, and other causes of consumer price hikes,” says Luke Polach, Buildiro founder and CEO.
“For an industry with razor-thin margins, every price hike, no matter how small, makes it that much harder to do business.”
Buildiro.com aggregates inventories from some of the UK’s leading merchants – including B&Q, Tooled-Up, Plumbworld, Robert Dyas, Make My Blinds, and Lights.co.uk – and pinpoints the best deals.
https://buildiro.com/
Last month Lowe’s announced it would “begin helping builders of the metaverse create new possibilities.”
To define “metaverse”, it might be described as “a virtual reality space in which users can interact with a computer- generated environment and other users.”
Architects, designers, engineers and others within the building industry, as well as game and VR developers, already create and share elements of buildings digitally but the metaverse in this context is more about exploring new worlds through
VR etc and, as a vendor of many of the elements that might accessorise these worlds, Lowe’s wants to be a part of this.
However rather than entering the metaverse with a storefront to sell virtual goods, Lowe’s will provide digitised items from its real-world shelves free of charge to make “creations more beautiful, more useful and more inspiring.”
3D assets will include such items as lighting, patio furniture, area rugs, kitchen and bath accessories, and decor accents and will be usable across metaverse and non-metaverse environments, such as gaming, augmented reality and creative design.
These assets could alsobe leveraged by metaverse builders making virtual developments, homes, goods and experiences for all sorts of decentralized communities.
To start, Lowe’s will make more than 500 3D product assets available for download for free via Lowe’s Open Builder, a new asset hub available to all creators and addressing key challenges of interoperability and accessibility.
For added inspiration, Lowe’s will
also release a limited NFT wearable collection for builders in Decentraland
(a decentralised VR platform) to the first thousand participants starting to outfit their avatars in boots, hardhats, and other accessories.
metaverse, sort of
global eyes
Lowe’s enters the
www.lowesopenbuilder.com
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JULY 2022 | NZHJ 33