Construction site theft drives up housing prices

New home buyers in Canada are paying thousands extra for their houses because of rampant theft on construction sites, according to home builders. Lumber, bricks, windows, air conditioners and furnaces expensive pieces that go into building a house sit unsupervised. Independent crews toil away side-by-side and often don’t know each other. So the temptation and anonymity create a situation ripe for crime.

“It’s just too easy. I mean you can see how much material is around this site. We can’t simply lock this up every day,” Mark Parsons, regional vice-president with Monarch Construction Limited told CBC News. “That material just sits there, so it’s very vulnerable.”

The police, the insurance industry and the builders say workers on the site are doing most of the thefts. But there are professional thieves as well, who are attacted by low risk and potentially high dividends. The problem stretches across the country and police say there is not a lot they can do. Building materials vanish quickly into a black market driven largely by tax dodging middle class people who pay cash for renovations and don’t ask too many questions.

Conservative estimates put the loss nationally at around $220 million, but others peg the losses closer to a billion dollars. Whatever security measures are put in place, industry experts say the site remains a leaky and vulnerable place. And they don’t see that changing any time soon.