Updating Material Prices

Material prices are much more volatile than labor costs. How you handle them will depend on how much time you want to spend, and how much prices have changed.

Using the Material Fudge Factor

To make a quick, rough adjustment to material unit prices to handle sudden fluctuations in material prices, follow these steps:

1. Open BidMagic or an estimating template that you have created from it.
2. If asked to enter a project name, click Cancel so you can work on the template itself.
3. Calculate how much material prices have changed, overall, since the date that BidMagic's material unit prices were last updated. NOTE: To be most accurate, use a guess at the price that you expect to be in effect when the project starts--which may be different from today 's price.
4. Enter the percentage change in material prices into the Material Fudge factor. EXAMPLE: If prices have increased about 5% overall since the unit prices were last updated, enter a Material Fudge factor of 5%.

When calculating the overall change in material prices, keep in mind that lumber makes up only 8-12% of the overall material cost of a typical stick-built construction project, and that plywood is only 2-5% of the project cost. If overall lumber prices increase by 50%, it will result in a 4 to 6% overall price increase.

NOTE-- We retired the BidMagic construction estimating software in 2001. It has been replaced by Goldenseal construction estimating software. We still include this BidMagic estimating software manual as a convenience for users of our older program.