Absolutely. Significant contributor to the increased prices of homes. It's because of COVID and decreased production lines, is my understanding.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/lumber-prices-notch-records-on-building-remodeling-boom-11613471400

Good point was made (not sure whether this article or another) about how a lot of mills went bankrupt following 2008 and demand is finally out-pacing mill capacity causing the price to increase.

It's One reason why "used" home prices have gone through the roof, because Builders can't build houses for near the prices of already built "used" homes. I've heard some talk about Canadian lumber and the politics going on up there to try and keep people from moving to the suburbs, not sure what's true on that or not

We want to put on an addition to the house and potentially a garage, but it's just not feasible at this point with the prices.

Man it's crazy! I buy 2x4's and cdx by the train car for our crating dept. We ship our products in crates. I can buy birch plywood cheaper than cdx currently. 2x's I still get killed on. Our typical crate 6 months ago cost about $80 in materials. Currently it is $190 in materials.

I would never consider building a house right now. It's insane.

The crazy thing is renovations are still being done non stop. Prices are through the roof but business has not slowed down.

This is very true for my area. Flooring has also gone crazy but more and more people are calling and buying it. It's somewhat weird the way things are going right now.

Packamylase said:

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Absolutely. Significant contributor to the increased prices of homes. It's because of COVID and decreased production lines, is my understanding.

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and tariffs too as I understand

If there is an active hurricane season with multiple landfalls, hold on to your shorts!

burnbarn said:

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Packamylase said:

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Absolutely. Significant contributor to the increased prices of homes. It's because of COVID and decreased production lines, is my understanding.

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and tariffs too as I understand

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Yes, Trump admin put 20%+ tarriffs on Canadian lumber back in 2017. I believe they were lowered to 9% in December 2020, but import supply has likely not caught up.

Plant shutdowns are responsible for the astronomic pricing.

I was planning on building a house last year and decided to hold off due to lumber pricing. The extra 100K wasn't in the budget for lumber. I am hoping that it is going down by the end of the year.

Looking at the commodities market on 4/12/2020 the price for 1000 board foot of building lumber was 333.70. As of today (4/12/2021) it is up to 1106.40. That is wild

Lumber was the first major commodity to go insane last year. I'm in commercial construction. Not a home builder thank goodness but it still affects us. Lumber has been bad since late summer 2020. Steel has now become as bad. More than double in price and now carries a 6-9 month lead time for joists and deck. Pipe is also in short supply and is expensive. Also with rising gas this will affect many other materials and of course shipping. The winter storm in Texas hurt too.

ncsualum05 said:

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Lumber was the first major commodity to go insane last year. I'm in commercial construction. Not a home builder thank goodness but it still affects us. Lumber has been bad since late summer 2020. Steel has now become as bad. More than double in price and now carries a 6-9 month lead time for joists and deck. Pipe is also in short supply and is expensive. Also with rising gas this will affect many other materials and of course shipping. The winter storm in Texas hurt too.

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Going to have people learn what type of products use oil refining processes very quickly...

Like others have mentioned -- despite the fact that lumber prices have been through the roof for quite awhile now, new-home construction is still going strong.

In the county where I live, for example, there's a new housing development that constantly has 20-30 homes under construction at all times --- and it's been that way for well over a year.
Some are having their slabs poured.... some have the walls erected.... some are getting their trusses this week.... some are wrapped in Tyvek.... some are waiting on siding and shingles.... some are getting their drywall and flooring.
But they just keep pumping them out, and people keeping paying $600k for the homes.

I suppose it could be a case of the "haves" versus the "have-nots," as these might be second homes for a lot of wealthy folks.
Still, it hasn't slowed down one bit.
Crazy.

Steve Williams said:

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Anyone noticed lumber has gone absolutely through the roof. Man, I feel for anyone trying to do a new construction. Is this a shortage of trees, Covid, etc?

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Supply and demand. If you want to buy a house, bid at least $20,000 over the asking price and you might get it but probably not. I talked to a guy that has made septic tanks for about 50 years (the son) and they can't build them fast enough. The concrete has to have a curing time. Most all labor is through the roof too. I talked to a guy that clears lots and puts in septic tanks; he's easily getting 40% more than 2 years ago and people gladly pay him. Checked the price of stone lately?????

I always used plywood when I was building custom houses but I kept up with OSB prices. I saw it at $29/sheet and at $4.27 and now it is $38/sheet. I used to tell the guys at the lumber houses when nothing is going on, all I have to do is ride by and you throw lumber on my truck and when building is hot, you rape me. When is was $4.27 per sheet, I started to buy 10,000-20,000 sheets or so but I was afraid of de-lamination. I sold a 3200 sq. foot house to a guy in 1989 that had sold 1/4 acre of land in CA for $1.5 million.

I don't agree with it myself; charge me $10-12/sheet always. Cut off I-95 at the VA border and things will be almost normal. When you have an 800 sq. foot shack in one place and you can go to another and buy 2 new cars and a new 3500 sq. foot house and have money left over......can you blame them?

I have people wanting to buy land for 10-20 times what it was selling for a few years ago. They ain't making any more of that!

Paint, drywall mud, caulking are a joy to find too. Suppliers running out of paint bases and caulking, and they have no idea when to expect them.

packgrad said:

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Paint, drywall mud, caulking are a joy to find too. Suppliers running out of paint bases and caulking, and they have no idea when to expect them.

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This is extremely fishy. These shortages do not seem organic and caused by natural forces in the market. I suspect it is being done intentionally to attempt to sabotage this sector of the economy. Just as this covid Scamdemic was engineered to collapse the world economy, among many other nefarious objectives.

ncsualum05 said:

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A lot of people blame covid and will continue to but now I think in some cases it's greed. In some cases it's interruption in supply chain still causing these issues. Currently I'm booming in commercial construction but I'm hearing home construction is already slowing down. I can only imagine by late this year we will slow down as well. The market just cannot continue to absorb this pumped up inflation nor the lead times for a lot of materials. Building will come to a halt. I'm glad I have a couple of new jobs that are getting started to have backlog through what could be a tough time coming.

Also hearing chicken and pork shortage and price increases are here now due to lack of production. Why? Because stimulus checks apparently. They can't get workers.

On top of all that it feels weird to see the market continually inflated as it is. As we spend and waste huge amounts of money and continue to encourage people to stay home with stimulus plus unemployment, not to mention all the businesses that have survived the last year due to PPP. It just feels like a massive economic bubble that is going to explode at some point. I'm no expert of course but I feel something ominous. Feels like all it will take is a tax raise rammed through or a fed reserve interest rate hike and we're all in trouble.

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A few of the advisors that I work with think that we are on the cusp of a recession...

packgrad said:

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The crazy thing is renovations are still being done non stop. Prices are through the roof but business has not slowed down.

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That's because people are selling million dollar shacks in California and showing up in the Triangle with cash in hand for any available house they can get their hands on, which might be why my house value jumped $55,000 in just one month.

Oldsouljer said:

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packgrad said:

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The crazy thing is renovations are still being done non stop. Prices are through the roof but business has not slowed down.

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That's because people are selling million dollar shacks in California and showing up in the Triangle with cash in hand for any available house they can get their hands on, which might be why my house value jumped $55,000 in just one month.

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I had a buddy buy a house in Greenville about a year ago for 260K in one of those cookie cutter neighborhoods. The exact same house that he bought the next road over is up for sale for 330K. Its wild

Inflation/devaluation of the dollar is a factor here too. How many more trillions has the federal government added to the national debt since the Scamdemic began, with all of the money spent on the stimulus checks, additional unemployment benefits, etc.

This is socialism, and is being deliberately used to crash the economy and implode the currency.

https://instagr.am/p/COjYP1Mn8TI

I'm not surprised to see Gold up just 3%, it's the most manipulated commodity market in the world for reasons you can guess at. But Silver is also highly manipulated, surprised it's up like that. The redditors have something to do with that, they're trying to bust up the paper shorts by publicly encouraging a silver buying spree.

.@NCStateCNR professor Robert Bardon explains the #lumber shortage and price surge. https://t.co/a9icClP7xF #ThinkAndDo pic.twitter.com/lZG6MZbrIn

— NC State Alumni (@NCStateAlumni) May 22, 2021

Biden admin seeking to further increase tariffs on Canadian lumber.

Protectionism = Bad

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-us-seeks-to-double-tariff-rates-against-most-canadian-softwood-lumber/

Sierrawolf said:

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I try to stay out of politics discussions but damn...Since Biden has come into office:

-No Bojangles Supremes
-Rations on Chick-fil-A Sauce
-Lumber astronomically expensive
-Gas Shortage
-Cryptos Crash

Pair all that with the cicadas and it's like living in End Times

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I kind of liked Trump because I felt safe when he was in charge plus he seemed like the only prez since Reagan that gave a damn about the country and the people. But in a way, I'm glad he left office so as to not take the hit for the ugly economic times I feel are just ahead, and would be coming home to roost no matter who was in the White House. However, who the President is will determine just ugly it's going to get, and yes, I share your anxiety. Trying to do the little things in advance to prepare, stocking up on as much physical gold and silver as possible, looking for a good entry position to short the markets against the coming downturn. The latter action is how the Kennedy's made/kept their fortune in 1929.

I know a logger who has been in the business for about 40 years; worked his way up and did well for himself. He has 5 Kenworth log trucks and all the best tools to get the lumber out of the woods and to the mill. That equipment always looks new and is kept well.....it gets power washed every Sunday with added grease and fluids. He says his price for lumber has not gone up....he's getting the same money.

Weird that he's out of the money loop. Now if I was building, I'd still be using SPF rather than SYP but SYP has become more popular these days in the area and I have no idea why. It used to span further but that is no longer the case and it still crooks up as well as ever.

cowboypack02 said:

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ncsualum05 said:

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A lot of people blame covid and will continue to but now I think in some cases it's greed. In some cases it's interruption in supply chain still causing these issues. Currently I'm booming in commercial construction but I'm hearing home construction is already slowing down. I can only imagine by late this year we will slow down as well. The market just cannot continue to absorb this pumped up inflation nor the lead times for a lot of materials. Building will come to a halt. I'm glad I have a couple of new jobs that are getting started to have backlog through what could be a tough time coming.

Also hearing chicken and pork shortage and price increases are here now due to lack of production. Why? Because stimulus checks apparently. They can't get workers.

On top of all that it feels weird to see the market continually inflated as it is. As we spend and waste huge amounts of money and continue to encourage people to stay home with stimulus plus unemployment, not to mention all the businesses that have survived the last year due to PPP. It just feels like a massive economic bubble that is going to explode at some point. I'm no expert of course but I feel something ominous. Feels like all it will take is a tax raise rammed through or a fed reserve interest rate hike and we're all in trouble.

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A few of the advisors that I work with think that we are on the cusp of a recession...

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Consumer debt is way down and real individuals earnings were up a good bit last year.

Seems like a weird time to predict a recession.

Ground_Chuck said:

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cowboypack02 said:

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ncsualum05 said:

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A lot of people blame covid and will continue to but now I think in some cases it's greed. In some cases it's interruption in supply chain still causing these issues. Currently I'm booming in commercial construction but I'm hearing home construction is already slowing down. I can only imagine by late this year we will slow down as well. The market just cannot continue to absorb this pumped up inflation nor the lead times for a lot of materials. Building will come to a halt. I'm glad I have a couple of new jobs that are getting started to have backlog through what could be a tough time coming.

Also hearing chicken and pork shortage and price increases are here now due to lack of production. Why? Because stimulus checks apparently. They can't get workers.

On top of all that it feels weird to see the market continually inflated as it is. As we spend and waste huge amounts of money and continue to encourage people to stay home with stimulus plus unemployment, not to mention all the businesses that have survived the last year due to PPP. It just feels like a massive economic bubble that is going to explode at some point. I'm no expert of course but I feel something ominous. Feels like all it will take is a tax raise rammed through or a fed reserve interest rate hike and we're all in trouble.

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A few of the advisors that I work with think that we are on the cusp of a recession...

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Consumer debt is way down and real individuals earnings were up a good bit last year.

Seems like a weird time to predict a recession.

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Fair point. But other factors including bond and stock markets having reached extreme heights and the threat of inflation (historically a bond and stock market killer), coupled with insane amounts of corporate and governmental debt, rampant speculation (Bitcoin as an example), and central bank currency debasement can argue in the opposite direction. Frankly, I'm glad people have paid down their debt because it might be important to their survival down the road, should another 2009 or worse materialize.

Ground_Chuck said:

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cowboypack02 said:

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ncsualum05 said:

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A lot of people blame covid and will continue to but now I think in some cases it's greed. In some cases it's interruption in supply chain still causing these issues. Currently I'm booming in commercial construction but I'm hearing home construction is already slowing down. I can only imagine by late this year we will slow down as well. The market just cannot continue to absorb this pumped up inflation nor the lead times for a lot of materials. Building will come to a halt. I'm glad I have a couple of new jobs that are getting started to have backlog through what could be a tough time coming.

Also hearing chicken and pork shortage and price increases are here now due to lack of production. Why? Because stimulus checks apparently. They can't get workers.

On top of all that it feels weird to see the market continually inflated as it is. As we spend and waste huge amounts of money and continue to encourage people to stay home with stimulus plus unemployment, not to mention all the businesses that have survived the last year due to PPP. It just feels like a massive economic bubble that is going to explode at some point. I'm no expert of course but I feel something ominous. Feels like all it will take is a tax raise rammed through or a fed reserve interest rate hike and we're all in trouble.

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A few of the advisors that I work with think that we are on the cusp of a recession...

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Consumer debt is way down and real individuals earnings were up a good bit last year.

Seems like a weird time to predict a recession.

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True...but the government also is responsible for between 33 and 35% of all take home money last year. That isn't a good place to be