Posted on 04/29/2021 5:11:29 AM PDT by mylife
Lumber prices are so high that this ordinarily sleepy industry has captured headlines around the world. The generic lumber spot price reached $1,420.50 at time of writing — more than triple the figure of December 2019. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that this has added $24,000 to the average cost of new home construction relative to this time last year.
It's an unfortunate situation for builders, buyers of newly constructed homes, or anyone else who uses lumber. But it's also an unavoidable long-term consequence of some horrific policy mistakes that were made after the Great Recession. The only way to deal with this problem sensibly is to keep running the economy hot so that new supply can come online to catch up with demand.
(Excerpt) Read more at theweek.com ...
I just checked our local Lowes. Top Choice 2-in x 4-in x 8-ft Douglas Fir Lumber (just a std. 2x4) is $6.12 and... out of stock.
Holy crap!
we could trace this back to the Reagan era epa and the spotted owl destroying our lumber industry, then there was nafta..
So do I. I own a small 160 acre timber farm, and the buyers don't seem to be very eager to do any cutting. Don't see many loggers on the road, either. When the tree business is good, the highway will be packed with them.
Many people have been spending most of their time at home for the last year, and they're doing home improvement projects because: (1) they've stopped spending money on a lot of other things, and (2) they're never going back to their office.
I saw a news report a few days ago about multi-story apartments be built out of shipping containers.
It’s a thought!
Yep.
That's where it comes from.
“Sorry, folks — I’m no fan of Obama but I’m not blaming this on him. The U.S. housing market had been overbuilt for a long time before 2008, and subsidizing builders and lumber producers with cheaper loans and more money is only going to end in disaster.”
DEAD ON - probably started with Bill Clinton, with his lending requirements to people who couldn’t pay back their loans, and the Bush Jr. with his “Ownership Society”, thinking that if you simply gave derelicts the title to a house, they would instantly become responsible homeowners.
And with the cheap money juicing housing, as families became smaller, houses became bigger, with the square footage per person DOUBLING in 30 years...and all the while, our manufacturing base, which still had to pay market prices for borrowing money, going to hell.
Brilliance!
now they are insanely priced too
Real Estate market is hot in prime locations with prices going up further than anytime in the last 12 years. New homes have restarted appearing in markets long stagnant like suburban Phoenix. New home construction drives lumber prices and with that market resurrecting we are bound to see lumber prices leap.
Inflated home prices make one feel wealthier as there’s more equity to tap.
Agree it’s a multifaceted problem.
I built a project last month that should have been maybe $200 in wood. It was $700.
Nobody is working anywhere, the government stipend exceeds many of these jobs.
I read where it takes about 4 months for lumber to go from tree to store and the industry as a whole totally blew the assessed needs of the market this year and way under produced. (Due to COVID and other factors) Now they are in catch up mode.
Demand is out of sight with home remodels and new construction due to people working from home and also relocating from cities.
Crazy times.
I kind of agree with you here...
Trump was the best president of my time..
Having said that, he was also human, and made a few mistakes..
He went after the canadian lumber deal, and the result was higher prices, that continue to rise today (covid)..
So I will put the pricing of lumber on trumps shoulders..
No one is perfect
The Feds have closed the forests for the last 50 years leading to short supply and monster forest fires.
Its insane
Yep, Just in Time inventory is to blame on this along with Texas Freeze killing plastics production.
Postpone your work.
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