Don’t most people buy a fixer-upper as a first home?
I saw OSB go from $8 a year ago to $39 now. Fortunately I don’t have to buy any wood. I’ll wait ‘till it comes down, even if it takes years.
ouch, building when costs are temporairly high doesn’t necessarily mean the house is worth more...
It’s not just the lumber/home market. Copper is up dramatically, oil has risen, raw plastics are in short supply, chip market is seeing drastically longer lead times.
Some of this has to do with last years layoffs and slow rehiring.
Some is due to people still getting govt monies and not rejoining the labor force.
Some is inflationary pressures from continuing to print.
Some is pure high demand. And I’m sure some is govts playing games with each other.
But - it’s across the board. My company has been attempting to hire folks for 4-5 months and hasn’t been able to make headway for the most part. We were lucky to place a large number of purchases immediately when COVID hit so we were front of the line for parts, but we’ve gotten past that and are now back with the herd with significantly longer lead times on everything.
Maybe they can build houses with Spotted Owls.
Why the high demand when millions are out of work and thousands of businesses closed? I would think there would be a housing glut - a buyer’s market.
Lumber packages for a SFR that were in the $35K to $50K range are over $100,000.
So, printing money leads to inflation?
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.
Whaddya think? Wood just grows on trees?
My friends who fix up houses say lumber prices have skyrocketed, so I suggested using steel framing. Then we took a look at the price of steel and, coincidentally, it had an enormous price increase starting in November of last year and accelerated even more in December.
Can anyone think of some event that happened in that timeframe which could cause such massive inflation?
Was in Lowes yesterday, and the plywood prices were like off the charts!................
It’s the sawmills where the bottleneck is.
Vehicle prices are through the roof in my opinion because of charging what the traffic will bear and it will bear a lot. People don’t seem to care what the price is so long as they can afford the payments. That is so long as the lenders are willing. Same goes for houses. Stick framing lumber is up right at 400% in the last year and other building supplies have followed suit.
Why is anyone in their right mind building anything right now? Why is anyone in their right mind loaning money on a house that is so clearly over priced in a bubble? Why is anyone willing to move or buy in such an inflated market? Why is there no resistance to these exploded prices for goods?
Gasoline is merely going back to where it was pre-scamdemic. There should be no surprise or fear in that. It was historically cheap even before the prices fell.
Lumber and building supplies on the other hand have exploded and still show no sign of slowing. I sincerely hope this comes to a screeching halt and the suppliers choke to death on inflated price inventory and have to eat it all.
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.
My neighbor is building a deck. A pressure treated 2x4 was $5.46
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.
Add to the list Miller Lite beer in bottles. Bars around here can’t get it now.
Core CPI is still around 2%. We aren’t seeing wage inflation to go with the increases in prices. Commodities are blowing up and they all seem to be due to supply chains not be able to meet demand of reopening.
Most employers are not raising wages. They are complaining about the supply system.
I am waiting to see if the long term US bond yields have stopped rising and will begin to drop again. Seems that all of the helicopter money from treasury is being Hoovered up by the Fed for reserves.
We have over 20 acres mostly wooded. I am wondering how we could harvest our own lumber for building and repairs.....