Trump’s tariffs could hit Seattle-area costly home remodeling projects

Years of high inflation and the slow housing market in the Seattle area have made it harder for homeowners to take on expensive remodeling projects, pressuring small contractors who are bracing for another blow with the new tariffs.  

Justin Schuder, who owns Seattle-based J&M Remodel, said business at the start of spring was like last year, “a little lean.” 

Rising costs of home improvements are one likely factor, he said. Current events have been worrying folks, too.  

“People are, you know, probably just a little bit unsure about the economy, the administration,” he said. 

In the past five years, home remodeling prices increased sharply, driven by material costs and a shortage of construction labor, making it harder for many homeowners to afford renovations. Sellers, too, found it difficult to achieve higher resale values by remodeling as the housing market cooled down and prices inched up slowly.  

All of this, plus the recently announced tariffs, makes for an uncertain outlook for home remodeling businesses, vying for customers who can afford their services.  

“We’re all going to be working harder to make the same (business like last year),” said Joseph Irons, president of Irons Brothers Construction. “So, I think it’s going to be a tough year.” 

Tariffs to hit  

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump announced a 10% baseline tariff on all U.S. trading partners, excluding Canada and Mexico, and raised tariffs on some countries as high as 50%. On Wednesday, Trump abruptly backed down on his tariffs on most nations for 90 days but raised the rate on Chinese imports to 145%.

A tariff is a tax charged by the government on the importer, which is usually passed on to consumers.  

Tariffs could mean that fewer homeowners do projects this year, said Todd Tomalak, who leads the building products advisory practice for the home building analytics company Zonda.  

“Ultimately, a broad-based tariff like this is a tax on consumption,” Tomalak said. “And so, if it was a tax on cigarettes, you’d assume less cigarettes would be consumed. If it was a tax on motorboats, you’d have less motorboats consumed. Broad-based taxes on consumption means that there will be less spending.”  

In the last few years, costs of home improvement projects have spiked in the Seattle area. 

For example, since 2020, prices in the Seattle metro area climbed nearly 29% to $32,758 for a midgrade bath remodel and 15% to $87,697 for kitchens, according to Zonda’s 2024 Cost vs. Value report.  

Meanwhile, asphalt shingle roof replacements have risen 44% to $40,649 and vinyl siding was up nearly 30% to $22,683.   

A midrange primary suite addition in the Seattle area was estimated to cost $193,470, up 20% since 2020, whereas an upscale master suite was $414,137, up 25%, Zonda estimates. 

Prices in the Seattle metro area, with some exceptions, have increased at a higher rate than the national averages, according to Zonda estimates.  

“Prices are pretty sticky usually for building products, and so they take some time to come down if at all,” Tomalak said. 

The tariffs are likely to directly increase the cost of materials by around 2% to 3%, Tomalak said, but the overall costs could go up by as much as 9% when combined with normal inflation and as domestic suppliers adjust prices to measure the market. 

But the rollout of the tariffs “has been changing by the minute,” Tomalak noted, making the impact difficult to evaluate.

Tariffs announced during Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” excluded Canadian lumber, as well as concrete and gypsum (used for drywall) imported from Mexico. Tariffs of 25% were previously imposed on Canadian and Mexican imports but were suspended March 6.  

Still, the National Association of Home Builders predicted prices will rise for imported appliances, steel and aluminum (often used for siding). The trade group also expected stiffer tariffs will increase the duty on Canadian lumber to 34.5% this fall from the present level of 14.5%. 

For some home remodeling projects, higher prices might not hit until the summer or even later in the year, assuming the tariffs aren’t lifted. 

Tod Sakai, president of Sockeye Homes and SkyDADU, said the impact of tariffs on renovation prices depends on how long they remain in place. His companies would try to avoid raising prices on remodeling packages and wait to see if they go away.  

“Every business owner and supplier is thinking, ‘Can we absorb this for a while and then not get the public being affected too much?’ ” Sakai said. 

Some contractors say if material prices start to rise, they’ll have to pass those on to customers. 

“That’s not something that we can absorb as a company,” said Andrew Baklinski, owner of Mercer Island-based Baklinski Home Improvement.  

Sellers’ dilemma 

The slower pace of the Seattle area’s once “white hot” market is also affecting demand for remodeling work.  

The median home price across King, Snohomish and Pierce counties increased around 3% as of March from a year ago, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, far below the double-digit growth in 2020. The slower pace of home price increases means a home sale can no longer mask remodeling investment mistakes. Home sellers can lose thousands of dollars if a remodeling job doesn’t at least pay for itself through a higher sales price. 

Extensive remodeling for selling is rarely recommended, but some refreshing can be helpful and less costly. 

Most properties can usually benefit from touches, like “fresh paint,” said Sherry Sahlstrom, an associate with Bellevue-based Re/Max Eastside brokers.   

“People will live in a home based on their style, which is their right to do,” Sahlstrom said.  

“But if you’re going to encourage someone to buy a place, you shouldn’t have the purple carpet or the black ceiling.”  

Sellers can often find value by refinishing the wood floors, painting and changing the carpets, said Seattle-based Compass broker Matt Miner, who owns a construction company. 

“That will make the house smell newer, looks newer,” Miner said. “It’ll make the buyers less apprehensive about how the house was cared for and therefore that translates into a much higher offer.  

“But again, I always have a hard time with hard-and-fast rules in this because that may not be true if the kitchen is a disaster.” 

Staying put  

While sellers mostly remain on the sidelines, contractors say most of their clients fall into three general categories: recent buyers who want to fix what they don’t like about the home, white-collar workers with money to spend and retirees intending to “age in place.”  

Claire Hsu, an engineer in her late 20s, and her fiancé, Peter Puleo, also an engineer, bought their four-bedroom home in Green Lake last fall. They hired Baklinski’s company to convert a suite in the basement into a workout room. They also are reconfiguring the home’s main entryway, but the couple held off on a “lower-priority,” yet expensive, kitchen remodel.  

“We ended up just deciding to hold off on that and see how we liked living in it for a while,” Hsu said. 

Kate Schaefer and her husband, Glenn Hackney, both in their 70s, have extensively renovated their 1917-built Wallingford bungalow.  

To Schaefer, who bought their home in 1985, moving wasn’t appealing. But after hip surgery in 2019, she had trouble getting around tight spaces and sometimes stumbled on the old wood floor, which was uneven and splintering.  

Schaefer, who hired Irons’ company, said they originally planned to redo the attic but held off because they hit their renovation budget.  

“We did what we needed to do to make the house work for us into older age,” she said. 

Irons, a former president of the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties, specializes in “aging in place” renovations.  

This can include building a suite on the main level, adding accessible entryways, reconfiguring the floor plan to be more open and even installing an elevator so people can easily access upper floors. 

Schaefer said they replaced the floors, painted throughout, added an easier-access side entrance and expanded the kitchen and bathroom with new safety features. Now they believe they can stay there for the long run.  

“We’ve been in this neighborhood for a very long time,” Schaefer said, noting their grandchild lives close by. 

Abby Bass also fits the profile of what contractors say is a typical homeowner doing substantial renovations these days.  

She and her husband are in their 30s, they’ve built some equity in their West Seattle home over the past nine years and they plan to stay put and raise a toddler.  

“We are definitely not doing it to build equity or resale value,” Bass said.   

Bass said she and her husband hired Schuder’s company to renovate an unfinished portion of the basement, upgrade the bathroom and laundry room and create dedicated home office space in one bedroom and an updated guest room. Bass works at home a couple of days a week.  

She said while the remodeling was “expensive,” they proceeded after getting a clear, line-by-line estimate of the costs.  

“We live in an expensive city, and labor costs a lot here too, and that’s a big portion of what we’re paying for,” Bass said.