Construction material prices must reflect reality

President of Codia says that price speculation must be avoided and calls on Proconsumidor to play its role.
Leaders of the construction sector advocate that the local prices of construction materials should be sincere and by the reductions that these inputs are having at the international level, so that they are reflected in the final costs of the houses or projects.

Cristian Rojas, president of the Dominican College of Engineers, Architects, and Surveyors (CODIA), said that the entity will evaluate these prices and if they correspond to reality. However, exogenous factors influence such as freight and oil costs.

He said that this reduction in inputs arose last week, among them the rebar, which dropped 11.7%, will not be reflected immediately in the final costs because there are housing units that are already being built with the old price of steel, so the new houses that begin to be built now will have a reduction.

We invite you to read: Price of rebar dropped 11.72%, Iglesias reports.
“All price reductions should be reflected in the domestic market and avoid price speculation. And in this Proconsumidor must play an important role and adjust these prices to reality,” he warned.

Meanwhile, Teodoro Tejada, former president of Codia, affirmed that the price decrease of the bundle of sticks is derisory and should have dropped RD$20,000 and is still overpriced, given that the November 2020 price already had intrinsic the high freight costs and the dollar rate. He pointed out that a bundle of rods is 22.25 quintals of rods.

He explained that in December 2019, the cost of a bundle of rods was RD$19 thousand, stressing that in November 2020, a bundle of rods cost RD$57,850, and now in September 2022, that price was RD$82 thousand pesos and went down to RD$75 thousand.

While freight went up from US$2,500 before the pandemic in February 2020 to RD$14,000 and up to RD$18,000 a month in September 2020. “And now it dropped considerably to between 8 to 12 thousand dollars and the dollar rate has decreased 5 points, therefore the price of tied rod that had risen from November 2020 to the month of August 2022 an alarming figure of RD$34,150, the fact of lowering RD$7 thousand is an absurdity,” he said.