Hurricane Katrina isn’t wreaking havoc with the pocketbooks of people wanting to build a new home as much as once was feared.

Home-building experts said overall construction prices for new homes would rise this year – maybe by 5 percent to 10 percent – but several were uncertain that a massive spike spurred by increased demand for materials to rebuild the Gulf Coast was on the way. Home-building prices typically rise about 4 percent to 6 percent per year anyway.

“When you look at everything that is going on, you may find that it is not as major of an issue as you think,” said Ron Durflinger of Lawrence-based Durflinger Homes.

Here’s what Durflinger means. Hurricane Katrina destroyed about 200,000 homes. If all were rebuilt in one year, that would represent about a 10 percent increase in the total number of homes built nationwide. That would be a sizable increase, but not huge considering the national building rate increased by about 7 percent last year.

But Michael Carliner, an economist with the National Association of Home Builders, said it was not reasonable to expect all the homes to be rebuilt in a single year. He said following Hurricane Andrew – previously the nation’s most damaging hurricane – it took about 10 years to rebuild the 39,000 homes that were destroyed.

“It will be extended over a very long period,” Carliner said. “Home rebuilding in New Orleans probably won’t start at all this year.”

Plus, as interest rates rise, home construction in other areas of the country may decline. That means total demand for construction materials may balance out.

The reason prices have increased for concrete, steel, asphalt and other similar goods may be because those are materials commonly used in rebuilding infrastructure like roads, bridges and pipelines.

But Carliner is not sure even those increases are entirely related to Katrina. He said rising fuel prices had a lot to do with those increases, and global demand – particularly from the booming Chinese economy – was driving prices up.

Carliner said some people also were forgetting that material prices had been on a steady climb before the hurricane. In fact, he said wood product prices peaked in 2004.

On the job sites, though, construction crews are noticing higher prices and shortages in some areas, but not across the board. Gale Lantis, an owner of Lawrence-based commercial builder Mar Lan Construction LLC, said there had been increases in copper wiring and piping and PVC plastic pipe. Lantis also said fiberglass insulation was running in short supply.

All of it may be related to Katrina or it may not, Lantis said. It may be that people expected higher prices, so that’s what they’re getting.

“The hurricane is the excuse we hear, but I can’t tell you if that’s the truth or not,” Lantis said.