According to our readers and numerous roofing manufacturers, the roofing market in the West will continue its current meteoric rise. In fact, the only restraining factor in many areas is the lack of qualified personnel to apply these roofs. The upswing throughout the Western construction industry seems to have taken hold over the past couple of years and continues to grow at a steady rate.
The AGC of America recently reported that, compared to last year, construction employment is up in 243 out of 358 metro markets across the U.S. They also stated that 42 states reported an increase in construction jobs and sales of construction materials have risen steadily over the past year, in both the public and private sectors.
In our annual reader survey, the vast majority of comments were positive, and those comments seem to be improving every month. The most frequent complaint, by far, was not enough boots on the roof. Admittedly, there are still geographic areas where the economy is slow to react, but even those areas are seeing reroofing activity or some new construction as overdeveloped inventories are depleted.
The residential market is on a steady upswing, and the low-slope market continues its annual increase. The outlook is indeed looking up for the Western Roofing market. Roofing contractors are now letting the words “backlog” and “profit” once again slip into their vocabulary.
The article in our January/February issue was derived from the economic predictions of our reader survey sent to over 2,000+ contractors in the West. Many roofing contractors were more optimistic than in the previous few years. They are bullish about the Western construction economy, and they are predicting business will continue to increase this year. Of those predicting an increase, the vast majority of it was attributed to reroofing, maintenance, or repairs. Many also noted that new construction is on the rise in both the residential and commercial markets.
Steep-Slope & Low-Slope
Reroofing, as always, will make up the majority of the steep-slope market this year. The new steep-slope portion of the market, while experiencing a steady increase over the past year, is still playing catch-up. Several market indicators, including a rise in the resale of existing homes, as well as reports from construction material manufacturers, have shown intensification in housing starts and home prices across most of the West. Since we’ve been seeing this trend for a couple of years, it may be safe to say that this is the start of long-term growth.
While new low-slope construction is increasing steadily, look to reroofing and recover in the low-slope market for the majority of growth this year. The low-slope market is expected to capture about 59% of the total this year with steep-slope taking about 41%. This is an increase for the steep-slope portion of the pie.
Overall, the projected 2017 market is 29% for new construction, 52% reroofing, and 19% repairs and maintenance. New construction and reroofing are taking a bigger share this year, an indication that building owners are willing to part with some money, no longer just patching the roof. This is a very good sign.
Western Product Mix
In the low-slope market, TPO continues to take the biggest cut of the roofing pie in the West with a 23.6% share, up again from last year. BUR is in the number two spot with a 12.3% share, down again from the previous year. Other materials remained steady with only minor fluctuations.
In the residential arena, the big dog in the West for 2017 will remain fiberglass shingles with a huge 59.4% of the market. While this is a huge share, it’s down slightly from last year as new homes are being built with metal, clay, and concrete tile. The majority of the sales of fiberglass/laminated shingles comes from the high-end, as major manufacturers continue to emphasize their premium product lines, the majority being applied on reroofing projects.
As mentioned, slight increases were seen in metal, concrete tile, clay tile, and slate. These are all roofing products normally associated with new construction… a very good sign. The market shares are based on dollar volume of the jobs as reported by contractors answering our surveys.
What’s Ahead?
What lies ahead for the remainder of 2017? Western roofing contractors state they expect both the commercial and residential roofing markets to continue to be steady. The biggest obstacle on the road will be finding, and keeping, qualified roof mechanics to do the work.
By almost every independent financial and economic survey that we could find, it’s good news. The construction industry has seen an upswing in construction starts during this last year, particularly in the West. There has been an increase in the resale of existing homes and less empty warehouse space on the market. The consensus is that the Western roofing industry is definitely healthy and set for another year of growth.
