Anyone with a crystal ball out there who can forecast the future and tell me whether the current high lumber prices are just a supply&demand issue or if its the price from here on out?
Makes me want to build with steel, but that’s up too. Sheeze, how about concrete, haven’t checked its price lately. Maybe I’ll make everything out of concrete (I think that was a insecticide commercial).
jt8
Replies
Well, three years ago 7/16 OSB was going for $3.75/sheet out here (SE WI) and "premium" quality 2x4's $1.80/ 8' er's. Wanted to stock up, just like when (8 years ago) I did buy 300 sheets of 1/2" sheetrock for $1.49/sheet. Wife ('scuse me, fiance' at the time) said she didn't want all that building mtrl. lying around. Now she wants to build a new house...........
Lesson learned, trust your gut, and don't even mention it to your wife.
WSJ
Don't look at concrete. China has been buying up all the Portland cement for some huge projects going on over there, so there's shortages of cement now, and hence prices are rising on concrete. It's gone from $58/CY to $78/CY here in NJ recently. That's a 35% increase. According to my concrete supplier, the situation is only going to get worse for some time.
Bob
I have no crystal ball, and i am definitely not an economist, but will offer the following.
1) this is definitely an economics based/related topic. Not to be facetious but the way the Q is posed sounds like: is it A or B? I contend that the 2 options are NOT mutually exclusive. From basic econ 101 that i 've learned, price is ALWAYS determined by demand & supply. ALWAYS. pure & simple, if you don't understand & agree then cut your losses stop reading...
2) 2nd Q, is it the price going forward? This is where opinion comes in, and you know what they say about opinions, they're like ******, eveyone has one, and they all ... Sad matter is, the big world outside of our lovely smaller world has picked up in growth rate, and demand for basic materials and commodities is growing at a faster rate than what we've been used to. At the same time, supply for these things is shrinking, for many reasons (we've used up much of the stuff, we've bull dozed over it, laws & regulations getting tighter...) which means, again based again on econ 101, price can only go up unless we reverse some of these changes... So i contend that both options or your Q are true (both A & B)
3) WRT Q about switching to alternate materials, e.g. steel or concrete, i say good luck. Based on another concept called arbitrage (or substitution), these things are related, so they move together in price, although with a possible delay. common sense, driven by other folks who reach the same conclusion, trying to substitute a commodity (or good or service) that's rising in price with another one that's still low, soon enough it cathes up... delay is caused by folks needing to figure things out, and adjusting to use one material (pouring concrete) vs another (pounding nails into 2x4s). lumber/steel/concrete prices are up also because other things needed to produce it (oil, taxes& tarifs, wages...) are going up, so this is no temporary thing :-(
FWIW....
When you see 7/16" OSB go from $11.25 to $18.76 in less then twenty five hours, Makes you start to think about stocking up.