By Cristina Miguelez | Fixr
During March of 2020, many businesses and industries were forced to shut down and halt production for a period of time, including lumber yards and saw mills. With an ever increasing demand for home building and renovation projects over the past year, matched with the fall-out from the pandemic, the price of lumber has reached new highs.
In Fixr.com’s previous look at this issue in September 2020, lumber had reached a price of $840 per 1,000 board feet. Since then, the cost has continued to sky-rocket to more than $1,300 for 1,000 board feet. And with recession-fueled low interest rates, consumers’ goals of building new homes is driving supply lower, resulting in these unprecedented price increases.
As the graphic below shows, lumber costs have dramatically risen 430% over the last 12 months to a record-breaking high. 88% of homes in the US have lumber framing and lumber is used throughout other areas of the home as well, which has led to an increase in the overall cost of home construction across the nation. So who is going to be responsible for paying this increase in costs?
