A report by property and construction consulting firm Rider Levett Bucknall says that building costs are rising at the fastest pace in six years, Peter Grant writes in The Wall Street Journal.
The index of construction costs in the U.S. rose 1.66 percent between July 1 and Oct. 1. Data from the Commerce Department indicated that the value of construction put-in-place in the first nine months of 2014 was $710 billion, a 6.1 percent increase from the same period in 2013. The report also predicts that construction starts in 2015 will rise about 10 percent as general optimism about the construction sector continues to rise.