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 ...
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.
I started building a new chicken house and sorry I did. Can’t quit 1/2 way through. Roof tin was delayed 2 weeks and by that time the siding will be even higher.
Bkmk
A lot of our lumber supply is stuck in Canada - the idiot PM has the borders jammed up and shipments not moving in or out.
“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.”
All booms are followed by busts.
The bigger the boom (1920’s), the bigger the bust (1930’s).
This is more a condition of inflated dollar supply.
Isn’t going to end any time soon either.
I live in timber country in North Idaho. The lumber mills around here are running at maximum capacity and have huge piles of dimensional lumber and sheet goods waiting to be packaged and shipped. There is a steady stream of loaded log trucks on the road. I suspect it is the accursed middle men who are jacking the prices up. I’ve been buying boards from “mini-mills” for various projects. When you buy a 2x6 from them it is truly 2” x 6” and is much stouter than the stuff you get at Home Deport for 3X the price.
prices went crazy during gulf war II
I was about to post the same thing. Also blaming Obama for “pivoting to austerity” after 2010 is rather laughable.
Metal wall studs?
Composite decking?
I’ll go out on a limb and guess that most all building materials are historically expensive.
Here in my area of the Mon-Valley,SW Pennsylvania,there are a lot of 19-29 thousand dollar fixer upper houses. In the last few years they were being snapped up and flipped. Now they are just sitting. When your building materials prices have almost tripled,(even if you can find lumber)that sure puts a bite in your profit.
prices got so bad in gulf war II we started housing troops in cargo containers
And my wife is pushing hard to build a new house because she’s sold some land, but it’s not gonna be enough. Yikes!
if you have a truck do some dumpster diving or curb shopping. I trash picked a old cedar picnic table and took it apart and ripped it down for building my raised garden bed. Also flea markets are becoming popular.
Damn - no wonder housing prices are way up, who can afford to build a new one?
Lumber is expensive right now, this is true, but blaming Obama in 2021 is just a nonstarter.
Blaming Obama for high lumber prices by saying it was his fault for not throwing massive heaps of our tax dollars at the lumber and housing industries in 2008... which led to Obama losing that ironclad control of all three branches of government in 2010... which then led to an unremarkable economic recovery... which of course led to Trump, who was of course just the worst thing ever... just may be the worst of all possible takes.
The subtle lede in this article is that if you’re mad that lumber is expensive, you’d better get all the way on board with unlimited government spending (and control, the author is eager for the government to not just subsidize the lumber industry, he’s quite happy with the government telling people what to build as well) because accepting the realities of an economic system and possibly waiting a year to put that new deck in is going to lead to republicans getting elected.
That kind of idiocy, slouching toward Venezuela.
Yep, and the 20% tariff (now reduced to 9%) PDJT added on to Canadian lumber didn’t help.
https://www.familyhandyman.com/article/us-commerce-department-cuts-tariffs-on-canadian-lumber/
We’re going to see the copper pipe scrounger guy in the Wire pushing a shopping cart around with some ripped off nailembedded 2x4 trying to get funds for his next fix.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.