Typically, I am not the sort of person who feels the need to appease other people. In fact, you might say that I have a contrarian nature, at times. I am resistant when others tell me what to do, if I feel that they lack the sort of authority earned from experience and first-hand activity. Sometimes I've even been known to outright go in the opposite direction with things, just because I don't like the way I was told. Are you getting the picture?
I'm not him. I'm not the guy who's going to just say something because anyone told me to do it. Additionally, I'm not going to write or say something in-person to you if I haven't, at the very least, vetted it to my best ability. Now, with that being said, Let me put this out there.
I've been concerned about the health and stability of the industry since Q3 of 2025. In December of last year, I wrote that a lot of things needed to go right in Q1 of 2026 for the year to avoid the things that I was growing apprehensive about. Costs. Inflation. Materials. Policy. Demand. None of the factors I was telling people to watch for have gone the right way, so far. Despite this, however, I've yet to hear word from contractors in the field really sounding any alarm. There could be a few reasons for this.
Cash-Cost Blindness
I recently was on location with a contractor who was sharing with me about a recent bid they'd been party to. It was for a large, national commercial customer who'd they had completed work for in the past. So, their bid process was not unfamiliar to him. After being awarded the contract, he'd managed to find out what some of the other bids had been.
"My first thought, when I saw them, was that it looked like a bid from three or four years ago," he said. "Some people seem to be hesitant to raise their prices, but, it's just not reality."
If this is happening in other parts of the country, where contractors are holding on to outdated pricing structures in order to avoid customer sticker-shock, then that could partially explain some thing...but not everything, because everyone still seems pretty busy.
Another possibility is that commercial clients are trying to push through as much of their annual maintenance as possible, as early as possible, to avoid what they all know is coming. At the time of this writing, the Iran war is entering its eleventh week, and there does not appear to be a clear off-ramp for the hostilities. We are two-weeks away from a full blown physical shortage being triggered. Last week, the final oil tanker that was en route before the war started, pulled into dock. There are no others coming, as of right now.
I've written about it before, but it bears repeating. Contractors should be building pricing protections into all their contracts going forward for the rest of the season. Things are too unpredictable and too volatile to do anything else. The commercial clients will feel it too, as transportation costs start impacting their businesses.
Worst case scenario: By mid Summer everyone might batten-down the hatches, and be trying to wait out the oil-shock/shortage. Best case scenario: We deal with a few months of elevated asphalt prices per ton.
See you on the road!
