Anyone Curious on Lumber Prices

Oh boy, I need to replace the bed on my snowmobile trailer. Suppose that’ll cost me my first born.

But Bucky, I have found when you need to build around a corner or a semi circle Menards is the go to place! If you want anything straight then not so much.

Dutchboy wrote:

But Bucky, I have found when you need to build around a corner or a semi circle Menards is the go to place! If you want anything straight then not so much.

Last Sunday on the Lindus Home Improvement radio show on WCCO Andy Lindus speculated the price of lumber and other building supplies would likely never decrease. As long as there is demand, there would be no reason to lower prices. (Sounds like basic economics to me…)

-J.

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The price of steel is going crazy too. 10% increase in November. I was just told 10% in February, and plan for another 10% March.

I’ll take menards lumber over home depot.

Solid wood flooring hasn’t spiked terribly. White oak has been rising but that trend started prior to covid.

The need for more southern mills is still there. I mean really, how’s a guy suppose to match up to a 1952 red oak from Tennessee with a 2020 young growth red oak from the Appalachians? rant over

Should I buy the 2x6s for my garage addition now or wait to spring?

Slipbob nick wrote:

So I take it if I’ve been toying with the idea of an extra garage or pole barn I might as well just put it off for awhile?

I’m in the same boat, but we are supposed to sign a contract next week on a new garage build. I’m betting it will have a substantial price increase clause allowing the builder to rebid if prices rise.

Just my luck, waited 20 years to do this and then I land on top of a huge price run up when I finally get to pull the trigger.

Grouse

I build a garage shelf over the summer and needed 1x piece of plywood and some 2x4s. It was about $80. I think the cheapest chipper plywood was over $30.

2020 was supposed to be the year of major remodel, and now that the end of covid might be nearing my wife is getting pushy again. I keep trying to explain to her that it isn’t gonna happen right now…

Jon Jordan wrote:

Last Sunday on the Lindus Home Improvement radio show on WCCO Andy Lindus speculated the price of lumber and other building supplies would likely never decrease. As long as there is demand, there would be no reason to lower prices. (Sounds like basic economics to me…)

My buddy owns a granite company and this is what he is worried about. His business has been ok through all this (for the most part) since a lot of contracts were already set, but he wonders if high material prices will scare people away moving forward. He sees no reason prices will drop back if they can get away with it.

I’m smack dab in the middle of a shop project and the design stardom a new house. Build the house first. That way you know you get it. It is what it is at this stage in my life.

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So who owns a mill and wants to cut me some 2×6 for cash

Mike,
You got plans yet?

I did my basement floor with engineered hardwood last fall and I really didn’t notice a big jump in price like so many other products.

Bell,
That’s hardwood. So far that pricing has been relatively stable and it’s an engineered product.
It’s crazy and not too long ago engineered studs and SPF studs were not even in the same stratusfear, now in some cases they are a viable option.
For example there are currently no 2×6 10′ precut studs. They are shipping 10’ers and having carpenters cut them on site.

I have been working with a place the builds pre-built buildings (sheds, barns, garages, small cabins) for a few months. I got a smaller shed from them in spring of 2020. Since I started looking at something bigger to add to my property in late summer, they have added a 15% surcharge due to increased lumber prices that started in June I believe. I just ordered a 14×32 lofted building yesterday and still felt OK with the end price

I think it will come down to what people are OK with paying based on their wants. If people stop buying, prices wont increase and over time should go down. If people keep buying the prices will remain where they are

Lumber sounds cheap…. come to Maui and buy some

The price of lumber is up 193%—and about to spike even higher
BY
LANCE LAMBERT
Lumberyards and homebuilders alike have delayed buying lumber from sawmills in hopes the price of the sky-high commodity would finally come back down to earth. It hasn’t budged, and now the buying rush is on ahead of spring and summer projects.
“Clearly mills won the standoff,” Stinson Dean, CEO of Deacon Lumber, told Fortune. This influx of buyers is only further driving up the price. On Friday, the price of lumber per thousand board feet jumped to $1,048, according to Random Lengths. That’s an all-time high, and up 193% from a year ago. That price jump is unlikely to be the last. On Monday, the May futures contract price per thousand board feet of two-by-fours jumped $32 to $1,158. That uptick would have been higher had circuit breakers not been halted 20 minutes into trading—something that occurs when the commodity is up more than $32 during a single trading day. “It’s clearly a short squeeze. In futures and spot markets. Lumberyards are overcommitted on their sales, and there isn’t enough wood to cover,” Dean told Fortune. This is a clear signal, he says, that prices will go up more in the short term.
From the onset, the pandemic was a perfect storm for surging lumber prices. At the same time that sawmills were limiting production during the early months of the crisis, the pandemic was spurring a do-it-yourself boom among Americans stuck at home. That supply and demand mismatch was made worse by record low interest rates and a historically tight existing housing inventory which caused buyers to rush to new construction. The backlog is so big that prices aren’t falling despite wood production hitting a 13-year high in February.
Don’t expect demand to drop anytime soon.
“The pipeline for lumber and other wood products demand remains quite deep in 2021…Builders have plenty of ongoing projects to keep working through, which is keeping lumber and panel demand high, and making it very difficult for mills to ramp production up fast enough to rebalance the market,” says Dustin Jalbert, senior economist at Fastmarkets RISI, where he specializes in wood prices. Jalbert foresees an eventual lumber correction, but there’s no guarantee it will return to the April 2020 price of $358 per thousand board feet. If a correction does occur, it will likely be the result of the cost of lumber overwhelming builders at the same time as rising interest rates tamp down homebuying. That hasn’t happened yet, despite current lumber prices adding at least $24,000 to the price tag of a typical new single-family home, according to the National Association

I was just at the local yard last night talking about summer work, and they are seeing $1175-1200 which is actually down from the ~$1300 peak a week or 2 ago. Their contractors are moderately busy, but customers are wising up to the costs and are pumping the brakes on the “built at all costs” type contracts. There’s more and more wait and see type situations, which is the first step towards falling prices.

I think by late summer we will see a slow but steady correction. The stimulus money isn’t coming again. The fed will not be able to deny inflation for much longer 6 months from now. The $300-$400 range days may be well behind us, but I’d bet we see things from the $600-$800 range again within a year.

I’m about ready to buy a chain saw mill and and harvest some Black Ash and Cedar i have . Prices are nuts !

Prices are nuts that is for sure. The mills, yards, etc. are ALL reporting record profits. I know volume is up but so are margins. No one is accusing price gouging but many are padding their bank accounts and pointing fingers at the other guy or blaming THE PANDEMIC. JMO

Eelpoutguy wrote:

Mike,
You got plans yet?

I did and my garage addition is on its way. Footings and foundation were finished up last week. It reminded me why I stopped doing that stuff. I was not too happy with the added cost but am happy I locked in my material. I am glad I didn’t wait any longer for the prices to go down and I don’t see them going down for a while. I have saved for this for a long time and every year I thought I had enough. Then cost would go up again. To me having the garage addition outweighs the inflated cost of materials and waiting longer. If the sticks drop down $2 each, it will only save me $300.

I wqas planning to build a 10 x 20 shed last spring but didn’t get around to it as I needed to focus on an unexpected new boat. Then last fall with the lumber spike I thought I would wait until this spring, hoping the prices would drop. Who knows they might continue up so I ordered the long lead time items yesterday, siding, shingles, doors, yesterday. Unlike last fall, Menards pretty much has all dimension lumber in stock, including treated. The cost for the shed is now over $7K, up about $2K.

3/4 x 4 x 8 treated tongue and groove – $80
1/2 x 4 x 8 plywood – $52
1/2 x 4 x 8 OSB – $42
stud – $8.09

This guy give a pretty good description of what is going on and why. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei14ks5ggGo

Covid kept many of the elite of society home with all the travel restrictions abroad, once those start letting up more of these homes that they lived in will need upgrades they noticed while actually being there more than a summer at a time. That will keep this peak going. Couple of my high end GCs have contracts signed for next spring already. Many subs I know are done taking work for the year.

This isn’t going anywhere soon IMO.

Lumber

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Both the Menards and the Home Depot near me are overloaded with treated lumber. I’ve never seen so much stocked in the yards and around the buildings.

Eelpoutguy wrote:

Lumber

Well played.

Dutchboy wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Eelpoutguy wrote:</div>
Lumber

Well played.

That is hilarious.

I was coming back from Home Depot with a couple of sheets of 3/4″ treated plywood to replace the flooring on my boat, and a guy pulled me over brandishing a pistol!
I thought I was being car jacked so I threw my keys at him to avoid getting shot. He swatted the keys away and proceeded to transfer my plyood to his truck.
I was Lumberjacked!

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