Karl Kreutziger Karl Kreutziger

It could be the best end-of-year bonus for a developer—construction costs are beginning to stabilize. Rising construction costs have been the biggest challenge for developers in recent years, but this year, costs started to stabilize, and in 2020, construction experts expect that trend to continue.

"Construction costs became much more manageable in 2019, and we expect this trend to continue into 2020," Karl Kreutziger, president of C.W. Driver Cos., tells GlobeSt.com. "While 5-6% yearly increases plagued the industry leading up to 2019, since then more manageable 2-3% increases have been common. This is good news, as the previous, more drastic increases meant that costs could balloon as much as 15-18%-plus between entitlement and permitting. We don't yet know how commodities such as steel, lumber and concrete will fare in 2020, particularly with pending trade issues and tariffs, but we don't anticipate as large of increases as in years past."

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Kelsi Maree Borland

Kelsi Maree Borland is a freelance journalist and magazine writer based in Los Angeles, California. For more than 5 years, she has extensively reported on the commercial real estate industry, covering major deals across all commercial asset classes, investment strategy and capital markets trends, market commentary, economic trends and new technologies disrupting and revolutionizing the industry. Her work appears daily on GlobeSt.com and regularly in Real Estate Forum Magazine. As a magazine writer, she covers lifestyle and travel trends. Her work has appeared in Angeleno, Los Angeles Magazine, Travel and Leisure and more.