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Prices for home remodeling outpace inflation

LOS ANGELES (AP) — If it seems like its getting more expensive to replace a broken door, kitchen fixtures or upgrade a major appliance, you’re not wrong.

The cost of home repair and remodeling projects is up compared to a year ago and running ahead of inflation overall, according to a report from data analytics company Verisk.

The firm’s latest Repair and Remodeling Index jumped 3.4% in the April-June quarter compared to the same period last year. That’s a bigger annual increase than the 2.7% rise in inflation in the same period, as measured by the Consumer Price index.

The index, which tracks costs for more than 10,000 home improvement products, including appliances, doors, plumbing and windows, showed a roughly 0.6% increase from the January-March quarter.

“While costs did continue to rise, they rose at a slower rate than in the first quarter,,” said Greg Pyne, vice president of Pricing at Verisk Property Estimating Solutions.

Much of the increase in home repair and remodeling costs appears to be driven primarily by higher labor costs for repair and remodeling work, Verisk noted.

The most labor-intensive types of home repair or remodeling work registered the biggest quarterly increases in labor costs. For example, the cost of replacing tile flooring rose 1.2%, while the cost of remodeling a primary bath or replacing vinyl siding each rose 1% in the April-June period from the previous quarter.

Nearly all of the 31 categories of repair and remodeling work tracked by Verisk saw costs increase at least slightly.

The latest index puts costs for repair and remodeling at almost 62% higher than they were 10 years ago and more than 73% higher than the first quarter of 2013, when the index debuted.

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