Lumber & Concrete Prices

How building-material costs have moved over the last decade — national benchmarks that set what you pay in Leander and Central Texas, plus local public-works bid prices.

The bottom line

Producer Price Index for each material (an index, not a dollar figure) and its change over 1, 5 and 10 years. Red = more expensive, green = cheaper.

Prices over the last decade

Bureau of Labor Statistics Producer Price Index, via FRED. Monthly, not seasonally adjusted. Click a legend entry to hide/show a line.

Two different stories

Central Texas concrete

Regional ready-mix index

What TxDOT actually paid near Austin

Average winning (low) bid unit price for concrete pay items in TxDOT's Austin district, from public bid tabulations. These are highway/roadway jobs, not residential slabs — useful as a directional local signal, not a quote.

Small samples (often 5–12 bids a year) and a short history — the state's open bid dataset only goes back to late 2024. Year-to-year swings here are mostly noise; treat the level, not the wiggle.

Your local price log

Hand-entered spot checks — a Home Depot shelf price, a ready-mix quote — so you can watch actual Leander prices against the national trend. Add entries in main-index/building-costs/local_log.json and re-run ./refresh.py.