The rising price of LEGO modular buildings could have lasting ramifications

As the price of LEGO modular buildings continues to trend upwards, what ramifications will it have on the series in the long term?

That’s one of several questions that are surely on the minds of veteran collectors of the LEGO Group’s modular buildings, which have been arriving on shelves annually for nearly 17 years now. Others include: how long can we expect the company to maintain that flow of sets, and will a seeming shift towards cheaper 18+ models in 2024 bleed over into the Modular Buildings Collection?

When 10182 Café Corner debuted in 2007, it did so with a price tag of just £89.99 in the UK and $139.99 in the US. Fast forward to 2023, and 10312 Jazz Club – the 18th building in the series – retails for £199.99 in the UK and $229.99 in the US. Standard modular buildings (so, not including the larger 10224 Town Hall or supersized 10255 Assembly Square) hovered around the £129.99 mark until 2019, when 10264 Corner Garage jumped up to £159.99.

10297 Boutique Hotel then introduced the new £199.99 price point in 2022, and that’s seemingly where we’re at now. But raw price tags are only one part of the story. Piece counts have also increased in line with those rising prices, to the tune of nearly 1,000 more bricks per set than the earliest models. (There’s an 843-piece difference between 10182 Café Corner and 10312 Jazz Club, for example – and 10182 would have retailed for £145 in 2023 when adjusted for inflation.)

Yet in line with wider changes to LEGO design language, those beefier piece counts haven’t necessarily translated to bigger and more imposing buildings. Instead, individual bricks are getting smaller, allowing for more detailed construction and fully-furnished interiors. The end result is that you perhaps don’t feel like you’re getting an extra £30 of LEGO in 10312 Jazz Club versus 10232 Palace Cinema (after adjusting for inflation), even while the piece count is much greater in the newer set.

And that value perception is surely what matters most to the people buying these sets: you can say on paper that 10312 Jazz Club includes more LEGO, but when the finished product is smaller than a set with 700 fewer pieces, the rising price of modular buildings becomes increasingly difficult to justify. And that’s before you even get into the reality of inflation, which is that while the price of consumer goods may be rising exponentially, wages are not – so LEGO collectors can’t always be expected to keep up.

That may be the conclusion the LEGO Group has arrived at over the past couple of years too, as the first list of sets supposedly arriving on shelves in 2024 suggests that we’re looking at an increasing number of smaller and cheaper sets designed for adults. All four LEGO Icons sets listed for release between January and March come in at under €79.99, while LEGO Harry Potter is apparently getting its first 18+ set to retail for less than €300.

We’re yet to hear much in the way of anything on next year’s LEGO modular building – presuming the company maintains tradition by releasing the next entry in the series in January – but the imminent retirement of three of the current five sets feels like it could mark a major turning point for the subtheme. 10270 Bookshop, 10278 Police Station and the long-standing 10255 Assembly Square are all on the way out by the end of 2023, leaving just 10297 Boutique Hotel and 10312 Jazz Club on shelves.

Could the LEGO Group take this opportunity to change course for the Modular Buildings Collection, introducing smaller and cheaper buildings – say, the equivalent of one half of 10270 Bookshop, on a 16×32 baseplate – or otherwise scaling back on the number of pieces in the box? Or will it plough ahead on its current trajectory, content that modular buildings fans prefer bigger sets, so that by 2027 we’re on the receiving end of a £300 build for the line’s 20th anniversary?

These are all questions worth mulling over as we approach 2024. For now, check out our latest YouTube video for more thoughts on what could come next for the LEGO modular buildings, and make sure to grab this year’s three retiring sets before they’re gone for good.

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