CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It's a late night for Jeff Seabury on Thursday, Jan. 12. He finished up a custom bathroom on a new build on Charlotte's west side. He's been building homes for the last five years through his company Seabury Construction LLC. He said not much has changed -- except for one big thing.
“The prices of materials is up, it's kind of hard to get materials," Seabury said.
He said it costs him more and in turn, costs his buyers more.
“This deck right here, five years ago would have cost maybe $2,000 worth of materials, now probably $4,500 worth of materials," Seabury said.
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He said as inflation continues to hammer down on Americans, some could get desperate. He said in the last month he's had two separate experiences of people stealing materials from his construction sites.
“I see them pull up in a U-Haul and they had another car, they pulled up at my site and started loading up my wood," Seabury said. "It was about $5,000 worth of materials that I almost lost."
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department showed up and the perps left the U-Haul and drove away.
This was an example in CMPD's end-of-year report.
“This past year we saw a rise in property crime up 6%," a CMPD spokesperson said.
The department echoed what Seabury said.
"As inflation increases in the price of raw materials, this may be an issue for us in 2023," the CMPD spokesperson said.
This is not the only instance of crime. There were multiple police reports detailing stolen property at construction sites. Power tools were stolen at one property and cost the victim nearly $9,500.
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