Posted on 04/14/2021 9:33:00 AM PDT by blam
With median prices for both existing and new homes at all time highs, and soaring at a record annualized rate of almost 20%...
... increasingly more Americans find themselves priced out of homeownership, while still cautious banks refuse to lend them the mortgages they so desperately need to live the American Dream (on credit).
And unfortunately, since most US houses are made out of wood, we have even more bad news: home prices are about to get even more expensive if for no other reason than the frenzy sweeping the lumber market is set to keep going through the summer peak of US home building as labor shortages and depleted inventories mean that supplies can’t keep up with skyrocketing demand.
As Bloomberg summarizes what we have observed across the past few months of torrid, sometimes panicked, ISM Survey Responses such as this one...
“Things are now out of control. Everything is a mess, and we are seeing wide-scale shortages.”
... there is an unprecedented shortage and tightness across the entire timber supply chain. Sawmills have had trouble ramping up fast enough to meet the surge in demand. Meanwhile, trucking delays and worker shortages at lumber yards have added to costs, which are now getting passed on to consumers. Worst of all, the bigger cost component of any new house l Lumber prices - have surged more than 60% to record highs this year, and analysts aren’t expecting any relief until late 2021, if not later.
That, according to Bloomberg, will keep pouring fuel on red-hot home prices, making ownership less affordable for large swathes of the population (one would almost think it was the Fed's plan to destroy the middle class). Soaring wood costs have already added more than $24,000 to the price
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at bizpatriot.com ...
The locals are not able to hire because the extended unemployment benefits amount to $637 a week per person, more than they can make working at $15 an hour. What is more amble benefits are included in unemployment. This will continue to at least September.
Add to this the stimulus was WAAAY too lush. This whole covidcation has been a boon to working people. The stimulus is more money than they have had in their lives. There are no used goods to be had. Boats, cars, motorcycles, four-wheelers etc. all bought up. Anything within that stimulus payment is pretty much gone. Pawn stores are not being restocked, the contrary, they are being emptied.
The day of the first stimulus payment the local lumber supplier parking lot was packed. Trailers and truck loads of stuff for small repair and other projects leaving the store like a land run. All loads of $2,400 or so, sometimes more not forgetting the stimulus was per person, not just per tax paying adult. Geez! I should have seen the trouble starting then but never expected the stimulus and unemployment payments to go on and on as they have.
“Many younger people don’t like physical labor and want it now.”
Or don’t know how to use a hammer.
while some people are lazy and.or have no self-respect and prefer to grift and beg for a living instead of doing any useful work,
many other people have just made a rational assessment of current conditions and determined that working is a losing strategy.
when government gives away money, health care, rent, food, furniture, transportation subsidies and transit passes, etc etc etc etc etc... PLUS you can just drift over to any number of charitable food giveaway places, charitable hot meal diners, charitable free clothing giveaways, charitable free gasoline vouchers for your car, charitable free health care clinics, charitable free furniture and television sets, charitable free this and that...
the available free goodies far exceed what many people can earn by working
it is that simple.
no, it is not that simple. one more detail is also important... if they got jobs they’d have to pay income taxes and sociable insecurity and all the rest of the take-aways. they don’t have to pay taxes on all their free money and goodies.
every merchant and service shop in town has WORKERS WANTED signs in their windows. AND, the parking lot is FULL of brand new nice shiny cars.. where? at the ‘free grocery, take all the food you want and no questions asked” giveaway place
the commies have finally managed to destroy the economy and with it, the self-respect and dignity of millions of otherwise or previously good American citizens
the damage has been achieved... though yes, it continues to be made worse
seriously, when you can pull down $3 or 4000 a month in free and non=-taxable freebies... including those important cash giveaways and rent and utility vouchers....and all the free food and health care..........why work for, say, $2000 a month LESS TAXES?
these people can be criticized for lacking any sense of dignity or self-worth. they can even be criticized for being selfish and, sometimes, dishonest
but they cannot be criticized for being irrational, their decisions to become beggars and grifters and takers, whatever terms you prefer......those decisions were, are quite rational.
I’d think that the people buying fixer-uppers are those that want to rent them out, a foolish proposition these days. Or flippers.
I’ve flipped 2 condos and a house in 5 years. Contractors are a perfect example why women don’t trust men. I’m now 67. it’s been a good 5 years but now we need more Mexicans.
—check out soybeans and corn futures—in almost everything we eat—
It's abut the pay...
All more reason to, wait for it ....., PAY MORE.
It’s the same at my company - they bought 6+ months of supplies a year ago, now there are worldwide shortages of plastics, and it’s unclear when that will end.
Not anymore.
I did. And honestly I am thinking my starter home may be my only home.
But most people either don’t have the time or the desire to get a fixer upper
Can't afford to buy the supplies to Fix Er Up is the problem.
Friend of ours is in need of a handicap ramp. Normally not a cheap item, now out of sight expensive. We all went through our garages and got together enough construction materials to build one for him.
I stopped buying, flipping and building new in my area -
sh!t boxes are going for $550-600k, plus material costs & shortages, all the subs buried in work and months out.
Even with high housing prices, margins are too thin
Yup, for sure. Not stupid at all, greedy maybe. Just taking what is offered and that is waaaaaay too much. Giverment fools and politicians are either out of touch or doing this with malicious intent. Most likely the latter.
I worked with Toys for Tots this last Christmas. Just gobsmacked at the number of qualifying people shopping in nice clothes and driving new vehicles, newer than mine by a long shot anyway. If all this is possible for the “poor” my give a damn just got busted, kids or no to be frank about it.
I gave at the office but not anymore. I’m through giving. I really am. My heart has gone ice cold to that.
Here in New York State, there are homes available for simply paying back taxes. Not in great areas, but not war-zones either.
A lot of mid-east/Pakistani/Burmese migrants do this. Buy up a house very cheap, when relatives (of course) eventuality come over, they buy more. Pretty soon, they own half the block.
“Here’s a tip: PAY MORE”
Is that a mantra for you? Weren’t you the FReeper exhorting employer’s to do the same in order to hire folks who are content to stay at home on Gov’t unemployment? Not everyone can do that in today’s market.
My neighbor is building a deck. A pressure treated 2x4 was $5.46
I have a friend who works in an industry that pays well. At job fairs they do pretty well with applicants at first but their most constant question is “do you drug test?” As soon as word spreads that they do, almost nobody comes to their table.
To the blogger who wrote this: If you can’t afford a a house/mortgage, don’t buy a house. Banks don’t “owe” you anything and you don’t have a “right” to homeownership. There is no shame in renting or living with family to save money to buy a place when the bubble pops.
That sounds good but it misses the point.
All of this is intentional. It is the cornerstone to herding people into project housing, across the street from where they work...or close to a public transportation system that can get them to their job.
AGENDA 21.
The basic theory is that if they can’t pass laws forcing the sheep to follow their plan, the alternatives to “the plan” can be made so unattractive that the sheep will look on “the plan” as a happy alternative to their impossible dream.
Read up on it. We are headed there at light speed.
woodbutcher has been warning us about this for a long time.
We replaced the deck in our back yard about two years ago, and the wood cost about $20K. That was more than double the cost of everything (labor/sealer/stain/??? about 12 years before.
The same contractor, then replaced our small front deck and 4 steps and the wood cost was about $7k.
He suggested re the solid wood front door to have a professional door painter remove the old door, then remove paint/crud and refinish it. The total bid cost was just over 1K$.
My wife thought that was a bad deal until we priced solid wood doors at Home Depot. After that wake up event, She called up the painter and told him to coordinate with our contractor and we would pay him 1K$ and buy or make them lunches. It was a deal.
Our decking contractor got out of the decking business and into installing/replacing windows and doors. He could not make a valid bid anymore. We had several friends, who ended up with their old decks due to the costs. He is now doing the same re doors and windows re their actual cost.
This month some close friends had to replace their old yard deck which had become a hazard.
Their contractor said that one of them had to go to the lumber supply places with him to pay for the decking redwood before it was delivered or picked up. Their wood cost was $25K and their new deck was about half the size as the one we had installed about 2 years ago.
Also, we have a shortage of painters to seal and stain decks. They couldn’t find a painter to seal/stain their new deck.
Fortunately, our yard guy and his family can do that, and they did. Again our friends had to buy and bring those supplies home with them.
From what I’ve read pension funds are buying whole neighborhoods of 1500+ sq foot houses.
Unfortunately, that can be worse. I bought my home in the Carolina mountains for the view, the property, the creek, and the trout pond. I've probably dumped as much money in the remodel project on the house as I paid for it in the first place. Now I have to start on the guest house just in time for the ridiculous increase in building material costs.
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