ORLANDO, Fla. – Rising material costs and supply chain issues are forcing Habitat for Humanity Greater Orlando & Osceola County to get creative in order to keep moving forward.

The local branch of the nonprofit is looking for cost-saving measures where they can, explains CEO Catherine Steck McManus. That includes buying supplies in bulk when possible.

She says between materials and labor, it costs around $25,000 more for Habitat to build the same house it did in 2020.

“(We are) trying to almost figure out where is the market going, both from a time perspective and then from a cost perspective,” she explained. 

Lucie Ghioto, the branch’s vice president of planning and construction, says her job is all about forward planning. How the issues being faced today may impact their ability to meet their goals for the year.

“It’s been a perfect storm,” she says of the last two years, between rising prices and supply chain issues from the pandemic. She started noticing price increases in the latter half of 2020.

“One day lumber will be up, and then the next day it’s affordable, but our cabinets will be delayed,” she explained. “These are things that we really started seeing in 2020 and they just continued and evolved.”

Ghioto says there is a ten-week waiting period now for cabinets, so they are starting to look at other options like buying them out of the box and assembling the pieces together.

“It’s a matter of constantly changing your approach in order to be able to continue moving forward,” she explained.

Steck McManus says the organization is constantly working to meet its bottom line, but that is proving trickier with more of what she calls “oh goodness” moments – when expenses end up being far off from what was budgeted.

“The concerning issue is we don’t know how to predict what the next ‘oh goodness’ moment is,” she said.

Steck McManus says they build around 30 homes per year, but if prices keep skyrocketing, that may mean constructing fewer houses.

The appraised value of these homes is also skyrocketing – which impacts the qualified low-income buyers. Habitat sells the homes at appraised value, working with local government to come up with down payment assistance.

A three-bedroom model is now being appraised at nearly $297,000, McManus said. Two years ago, it was around $165,000.

The goal for the nonprofit is to make the new homeowner’s mortgage no more than 35 percent of their income. 

Habitat Orlando & Osceola receives hundreds of home applications from qualified low-income families every year.