The headline finding: NYC is not the most expensive metro
Most published cost-of-living indices put New York City at the top. The Woogoro 2026 Quote Index does not. Across the 17 trade categories we track, New York City sits at composite multiplier 1.221, behind Silicon Valley (San Jose and Sunnyvale at 1.308), Honolulu (1.293), and the Chicago metro corridor (1.293, including Aurora, Joliet, Elgin, and Evanston).
This matters because most homeowner cost guides default to NYC pricing as the "expensive" reference point. For trades where construction-labor wages drive cost more than retail rent (roofing, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, concrete), the actual peak is in tech-corridor metros where every skilled trade competes with software wages, and in geographically constrained markets (Honolulu) where every material is shipped in.
The Honolulu effect
Honolulu ranks #1 in 8 of 17 trade categories: insulation, siding, windows, fencing, foundation, garage doors, painting, kitchen remodel. Insulation is the most extreme: 1.557x the national median, driven by inter-island shipping for fiberglass batt and spray foam materials. Siding follows at 1.523x, fencing at 1.432x, foundation at 1.413x, concrete at 1.419x.
Top 10 most expensive metros (composite, 2026)
Ranked by composite multiplier across all 17 trades. The U.S. national median is 1.000.
| # | Metro | Composite Multiplier | Population | Top Driver |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Jose, CA | 1.308x | 998,537 | Tech-wage labor pull |
| 2 | Sunnyvale, CA | 1.308x | 147,559 | Tech-wage labor pull |
| 3 | Honolulu, HI | 1.293x | 347,884 | Imported materials |
| 4 | Chicago, IL (metro) | 1.293x | 2,746,388 | Union labor + permitting |
| 5 | Aurora, IL | 1.293x | 199,963 | Chicago metro spillover |
| 6 | Joliet, IL | 1.293x | 147,344 | Chicago metro spillover |
| 7 | Cicero, IL | 1.293x | 83,164 | Chicago metro spillover |
| 8 | Elgin, IL | 1.293x | 112,628 | Chicago metro spillover |
| 9 | Evanston, IL | 1.293x | 78,110 | Chicago metro spillover |
| 10 | Arlington Heights, IL | 1.293x | 75,994 | Chicago metro spillover |
For comparison: New York, NY: 1.221x (rank 23), San Francisco, CA: 1.300x (rank 11), Boston, MA: 1.215x.
Top 10 cheapest metros (population over 50,000, 2026)
The cheapest construction-and-trades markets in 2026 are concentrated in the inland South and Texas border region. Every metro in the bottom 10 is in Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, or Oklahoma.
| # | Metro | Composite Multiplier | Discount vs Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jonesboro, AR | 0.811x | 19% below median |
| 2 | Valdosta, GA | 0.815x | 19% below median |
| 3 | Dothan, AL | 0.816x | 18% below median |
| 4 | North Little Rock, AR | 0.819x | 18% below median |
| 5 | Conway, AR | 0.819x | 18% below median |
| 6 | Brownsville, TX | 0.825x | 18% below median |
| 7 | Rocky Mount, NC | 0.829x | 17% below median |
| 8 | Laredo, TX | 0.836x | 16% below median |
| 9 | Enid, OK | 0.836x | 16% below median |
| 10 | Auburn, AL | 0.836x | 16% below median |
A homeowner in Jonesboro, AR pays roughly 62% of what a homeowner in San Jose, CA pays for the same trade work, before any material-spec or scope difference.
Cost spread by trade: which trades vary most by city?
Not all trades vary equally by city. Materials-heavy trades spread further than labor-heavy ones because shipping and import costs amplify regional differences. Fast-consumed trades (kitchen remodel) compress because chain-store appliances and cabinets price uniformly.
| Trade | Cheapest City | Most Expensive City | Max/Min Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insulation | Laredo, TX (0.796x) | Honolulu, HI (1.557x) | 1.96x |
| Siding | Brownsville, TX (0.808x) | Honolulu, HI (1.523x) | 1.88x |
| Gutters | Laredo, TX (0.796x) | San Jose, CA (1.469x) | 1.85x |
| Concrete | Laredo, TX (0.779x) | Honolulu, HI (1.419x) | 1.82x |
| Foundation | Laredo, TX (0.780x) | Honolulu, HI (1.413x) | 1.81x |
| Roofing | Laredo, TX (0.796x) | Trenton, NJ (1.429x) | 1.80x |
| Windows | Brownsville, TX (0.808x) | Honolulu, HI (1.448x) | 1.79x |
| Fencing | Brownsville, TX (0.809x) | Honolulu, HI (1.432x) | 1.77x |
| Landscaping | Laredo, TX (0.796x) | Fremont, CA (1.400x) | 1.76x |
| Garage doors | Brownsville, TX (0.813x) | Honolulu, HI (1.388x) | 1.71x |
| Electrical | McAllen, TX (0.818x) | Kennewick, WA (1.394x) | 1.70x |
| Solar | McAllen, TX (0.814x) | Fremont, CA (1.350x) | 1.66x |
| Plumbing | McAllen, TX (0.827x) | Arlington Heights, IL (1.365x) | 1.65x |
| Moving | Laredo, TX (0.807x) | Fremont, CA (1.342x) | 1.66x |
| HVAC | Brownsville, TX (0.823x) | San Jose, CA (1.353x) | 1.64x |
| Painting | Laredo, TX (0.796x) | Honolulu, HI (1.296x) | 1.63x |
| Kitchen remodel | Brownsville, TX (0.827x) | Honolulu, HI (1.335x) | 1.61x |
Why insulation spreads further than kitchen remodel
Insulation cost is dominated by shipped materials (fiberglass batt rolls, spray foam canisters, blown cellulose bags) plus skilled installer labor in tight crawl spaces and attics. Both inputs scale with regional cost. Kitchen remodel cost is dominated by chain-store appliances, semi-custom cabinets from national distributors (KraftMaid, Merillat, Yorktowne), and granite/quartz fabrication that prices roughly uniformly nationwide. The result: insulation in Honolulu costs nearly 2x what it costs in Laredo, while a kitchen remodel costs only 1.6x.
Download the dataset
739 cities, 17 trade categories, full per-city per-trade multipliers in CSV format. Free for citation under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.
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Notable findings (2026)
1. Texas border cities are the cheapest construction markets in the U.S.
Of the 10 cheapest cities (population over 50,000), 3 are Texas border metros (Brownsville, Laredo, McAllen). The other 7 are inland South. Border-region labor markets have low BLS construction wages combined with transportation cost advantages (Mexico-sourced materials for stucco, concrete, and tile work). Laredo specifically is the lowest-cost city for 7 of 17 trades.
2. The Chicago metro multiplier is structurally elevated
Eight of the top 10 most expensive metros are in the Chicago corridor, despite Chicago itself being only the 3rd-largest U.S. metro by population. The driver is union construction labor (Chicago has the highest union density of any major U.S. metro) plus stricter permitting and inspection requirements than most jurisdictions. A homeowner in Joliet pays the same construction multiplier as one in downtown Chicago.
3. Honolulu wins materials-heavy trades; tech corridors win labor-heavy trades
Honolulu is #1 in 8 of 17 categories, but all 8 are materials-heavy (insulation, siding, windows, fencing, foundation, garage doors, painting, concrete in some metro lookups, kitchen remodel). The remaining 9 categories are won by tech-corridor metros (San Jose, Sunnyvale, Fremont) for labor-heavy work (HVAC, electrical, solar, landscaping, moving) or by Northeast and Midwest metros (Trenton for roofing, Arlington Heights for plumbing, Kennewick WA for electrical).
4. The composite multiplier range is 0.811x to 1.308x: 61% spread
From cheapest large metro (Jonesboro, AR) to most expensive (San Jose, CA), the composite multiplier ranges by 61%. For a $20,000 home improvement project, that is a $4,300 to $5,200 difference based purely on metro location, before any scope or material decisions. National-average cost guides hide this spread.
5. New York City is rank 23, not rank 1
NYC composite multiplier of 1.221x places it 23rd nationally for trade-cost composite. The reason: NYC's high consumer cost-of-living is heavily driven by housing rent and food, neither of which directly affects contractor pricing. Construction wages in NYC are high but not uniquely so. Permits and parking fees inflate some categories (especially gut renovations and large material deliveries) but not enough to push NYC into the top 10 for the typical residential trade quote.
Methodology
The Woogoro 2026 Quote Index is constructed from three primary data inputs, normalized into a single composite multiplier per city per trade.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS). Per-MSA wage data for the relevant SOC codes per trade: roofers (47-2181), HVAC mechanics (49-9021), plumbers (47-2152), electricians (47-2111), painters (47-2141), carpenters (47-2031), construction laborers (47-2061), and others. Source.
- Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities (RPP). Per-MSA price index for goods and services, used to adjust material costs for regional sourcing differentials. Source.
- Woogoro user-submitted quote calibration. 4,886 contractor quotes analyzed by users between January 2026 and April 25, 2026 are aggregated into per-city, per-state, and per-service buckets. Aggregates with sample size n < 10 are weighted at 30% against the BLS+BEA baseline; aggregates with n >= 10 are weighted at 70%. Quote source attribution is anonymized; the underlying quotes themselves are not published.
The composite city multiplier is a 60/30/10 blend of labor (BLS), materials (BEA RPP adjusted to retail material indices), and population factor (cities under 75,000 receive a small downward adjustment to reflect slimmer contractor competition driving prices marginally lower; cities over 1,000,000 receive a small upward adjustment to reflect logistics and parking premiums).
Per-trade multipliers further adjust the composite based on the specific labor-vs-materials ratio of that trade. Insulation is materials-heavy (~70% materials); plumbing is labor-heavy (~60% labor); roofing splits roughly 50/50.
Limitations: (a) sample size for user-submitted quotes is uneven across cities, with the top-30 metros holding most of the volume; (b) commercial pricing is not included, only residential; (c) the dataset does not include rural areas outside the 739 covered MSAs; (d) regional price spikes from commodity events (lumber 2021, refrigerant transitions) are smoothed by quarterly recalibration but lag real-time conditions by 30 to 90 days.
Use the data
The dataset is free for any non-commercial or commercial use under CC BY 4.0. Attribution must include a link back to https://woogoro.com/woogoro-2026-quote-index.html or the citation above.
If you publish analysis or a chart that uses this data, we are happy to link to it. Email hello@woogoro.com.
For per-city deep dives, see our city pages (1,000+ U.S. cities) or jump into a specific trade:
About Woogoro
Woogoro is an independent contractor-pricing platform. Homeowners upload contractor quotes; the platform analyzes them line-by-line against city wage data, regional price parities, and aggregated peer-submitted quote ranges. The Woogoro 2026 Quote Index is a public-good byproduct of that analysis. The platform is free to use, requires no email signup, and does not sell leads to contractors.
Founded by Geoff Lane in 2025. Methodology is detailed in full at /methodology.html.