Business View Magazine May 2023

56 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 5 Lovley also highlights the sheer cost of materials when compared to former pricing. “As of January 01, of this year we have seen nine price increases anywhere from 10% to 25%,” he notes. “We have seen big problems with the cost of materials still going up, even though interest rates are rising and you are starting to see a little bit of the market- the price of stuff is still going up. Sheetrock alone, Lovley admits, has gone up another 20% compared to previous cost estimates. “What we are starting to see is that a lot of these companies are implementing repeated price increases with three or four price increases since COVID.” “It [price increases] started at almost 20% and now if you look at electrical wiring for example it has shot up almost 300%. Every one of these products, like electrical conduit piping and even water piping, have gone up, sometimes by 300%- everything across the board has been affected,” Lovley determines. “It used to cost me 85 dollars a square foot to build a colonial home and today I am closer to 145 dollars,” he adds. “This is a 70% increase.” Despite the new realities facing the housing sector, Lovley Development has been kept busy with its commercial and residential projects that have enabled the company to keep making a healthy profit. “We are seeing properties sell here in Connecticut for close to 300 dollars a square foot,” he relays. Two areas are taking off in the region, namely the need for home construction for the senior demographic and properties are also in demand for the young urban professional who would like to be near the shops and restaurants of the downtown core, close to transport hubs. “We are seeing more and more families that are in their 60s and 70s, moving back to Connecticut either from Florida or the Carolinas that were retired and bought homes. However, now their kids are having children and these