Posted on 04/17/2021 7:59:37 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Soaring lumber prices are holding back a U.S. housing market.
The number of building permits issued in March rose 2.7% month over month to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.766 million. The uptick is a mere blip on the radar compared with the 19.4% increase in housing starts, which grew at their fastest pace in nearly 16 years. Typically, building begins within two months of issuance, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
Some developers have "held back on projects on the expectation that prices will soon fall back," wrote Matthew Pointon, senior property economist at the research firm Capital Economics.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
I read in Feb that domestic steel prices are up 160 percent and manufacturers can’t meet demand. Appears you got lucky.
Sorry dude... Prices shot up right after the tariffs and have not stopped rising.
A lot of lumber is up 300-450 percent from pre-covid levels.
I have heard that roofing components around here have doubled as well for new home building. And yet, our government overlords keep telling us that there is no inflation.
i was ij the carpentry business back in the 80’s- and that was the last time i bought any kind of lumber- I would probably be shocked at the price today-
Quote I just got at my HD
Sheathing Plywood (Common: 15/32 in. x 4 ft. x 8 ft.; Actual: 0.438 in. x 48 in. x 96 in.)
$55.55 Buy 70 or more $50
The vast majority of the spike was in the last year. That was when it tripled.
Just price gouging. Standing timber is the cheapest it has been in decades.
that’s unreal- Wow!-
just ran across this:
“Lumber prices have skyrocketed more than 180% since last spring. This price spike has caused the price of an average new single-family home to increase by more than $24,000 since April 17, 2020.”
https://www.nahb.org/News-and-Economics/Housing-Economics/National-Statistics/Framing-Lumber-Prices
Tha’ts just from last year prices-
7/16 OSB plywood for exterior sheeting quadrupled in price.
Repairing and repainting the exterior of our house. So just last night purchased a 1”x 12”x 96” common pine board unprimed at The Home Depot. Set me back $25.83 before taxes. The primed version was an incredible $35.99, and came from Chile. I’m gonna prime the board myself, I already have plenty of primer. Don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Prices are unreasonable. I thought the costs were due to all the forest fires but now I think it’s just price gouging using covid as the excuse. Ehen a sheet of osb jumps from 8bx a sheet to 40 bx a sheet, that’s price gouging. All it is is compressed saw dust in the first place so that kind of steep increase for that material is simple price gouging.
Tools have risen sharplt as well but I hear thats because the ship bays have become parking lots. Goods are sitting on the ships who are waiting in line for weeks to unload.
I had hoped to pick up a few tools and some wood to make a few small yard items for a couple of extra bux. With things like they are, I can put that pipe dream in the foreplace.
There’s a perfect inflationary storm in building supplies caused by government spending inflation, producer employee shortages (COVID, they say), tariffs, fuel prices and more. Some of it, of course, is simply a result of production decreases. Also, since the mid-’70s, many businesses have answered decreasing sales with price hikes, the opposite of the supply and demand principle. “We must raise prices to stay in business.” I wonder if we’re headed for stagflation again, but the Fed tactics of the past 15 years or so seem to work against that.
Never understood the PDJT tariffs on Canadian lumber:
https://timberlinemag.com/2021/03/home-builders-applaud-canadian-lumber-tariff-cuts/
https://agnetwest.com/trump-imposing-tariff-canada-lumber/
Same here - we priced out a wood fence and it was over $9k!!! Same fence would have been about half that a year or two ago.
We were told prices would come down about 40-60% in about 6 months but that looks doubtful to me right now.
You should have received more for your lumber and whoever bought it knew that.
I spoke with someone with a lot of land that a company has been harvesting from for years and they were ‘nicely surprised’ with the 40% bump in the money deposited in their account. They didn’t even have to ask. You got taken for a ride. Sorry.
Bkmk
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