Steel has undergone tremendous changes in prices because of new technological advances that tend to produce better quality metal at lower prices. This is why the housing industry prices also fluctuate quite a lot with the prices of steel. Since the trend has been that the prices go down and the quality of product improves, it is only fair to assume that steel buildings will become highly competitive in the near future.

The usual cost of steel (as of 2009) per ton of steel is about $275 as per the IMF records. The good thing is that steel being extremely strong and durable doesn’t require a whole lot of material during construction. As an example, straight wall steel buildings, which are the more traditional and simple buildings, can today cost as little as $7 per square foot.

Domed buildings are also becoming more and more popular, and these can be even cheaper than the straight walled steel buildings. This is because they use less steel for building and therefore prove to be more economical. One disadvantage is that the available space decreases due to the shape of the dome. Thus there is a trade-off and usually both the options are quite good. Steel buildings are not very expensive to build but offer some of the best quality buildings of today, both in residential and commercial spheres.

The most popular steel buildings are homes, garages, sheds and boat storages in the residential sphere and mini-storage, repair shops, aircraft hangars, offices, commercial buildings, retail buildings and stores and factories in the commercial sphere. It is only possible with steel to offer such diversity and versatility in building – from the very small homes to huge commercial complexes can all contain the same basic building material – steel. This is unprecedented in the history of buildings.