Lumber prices down 11% YoY • Hacker News Board

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#81

Post by balderdash » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 1:02 AM UTC

ehnto wrote: post #51

pcurve wrote: post #39

From the same blog: vehicle sales are up 15% YoY https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2023/10/vehicles-sales-in... Not necessarily a sign of health, but playing catcup with hisotrical trend.

Used vehicle markets seem to have slowed, after a dramatic and surprising spike during the pandemic. Specialty vehicles in particular. For new cars, there was a dealer/scarcity dynamic that seems to have allowed dealers to charge more than RRP, and consumers were paying it. I wonder if that has had an impact.

https://site.manheim.com/en/services/consulting/used-vehicle...

Definitely come down, but still quite elevated

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#82

Post by WillPostForFood » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 1:02 AM UTC

envsubst wrote: post #66

artursapek wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy to think people were doing construction and remodeling at 3x typical lumber costs

These things are always cyclical, but FOMO is a tough emotion to combat.

Let's hope being stuck at home for a year is not a cyclical event! That's what drove a lot of it, not FOMO. Building a home office, using a kitchen multiple times a day, schooling from home...

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#83

Post by listenallyall » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 1:04 AM UTC

quadrifoliate wrote: post #26

curiousllama wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retail prices are generally pretty sticky - if the wholesale price persists, they'll come down, but it'll take time.

I hope they come down -- I have reduced my restaurant spend considerably since restaurant (even chain) prices went up by 30-50% in my area compared to pre-Covid. Maybe I'm too price-conscious, but I'd expect demand to go down over time as the rising interest rates affect daily life.

I'm like you, however it sure seems that the proliferation of DoorDash and the rest proves that plenty of people are entirely price-insensitive. Expensive base prices + 20-30% in fees.

Personally, I think there's a lot of overlap between heavy DD users and people on social media complaining publicly about how tough it is to make ends meet. Just a guess.

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#84

Post by dilyevsky » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 1:04 AM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #78

artursapek wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy to think people were doing construction and remodeling at 3x typical lumber costs

Labour is the biggest cost of house building. And during a pandemic, that is almost free, since many people are stuck at home with nothing to do.

You best believe it wasn’t free. Especially for smaller jobs like flooring it’s often priced based on material. Everyone I know in construction was making $$$ in pandemic

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#85

Post by bkjelden » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 1:05 AM UTC

artursapek wrote: post #63

tpmx wrote: post #5

The chart in the article does a nice job at illustrating that prices are roughly speaking back to essentially pre-pandemic levels after giant spikes. This seems healthy to me.

Crazy to think people were doing construction and remodeling at 3x typical lumber costs

Lumber is not that big of an input to total construction cost.

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#86

Post by colecut » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 1:05 AM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #80

artursapek wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy to think people were doing construction and remodeling at 3x typical lumber costs

I wonder how much of that remodeling was to accommodate a newly required home office due to WFH. If you really needed to have a separate office (eg kids), you simply had to grit your teeth and bear the cost.

If you didn't have the money, you would make it work...

Could do the same even if you did..

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#87

Post by derekp7 » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 1:07 AM UTC

yojo wrote: post #40

singleshot_ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say one inch wide, do you mean one of the twelve things in a foot, or one of the two things in the width of a 2x4?

I believe you’re referring to “nominal” vs “actual” size. For anyone who doesn’t know, a 2x4 is actually ~1.5”x3.5” Dimensional lumber is the original shrinkflator

Just like a quarter pound burger is 1/4 lb before cooking.

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#88

Post by flagrant_taco » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 1:12 AM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #78

artursapek wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy to think people were doing construction and remodeling at 3x typical lumber costs

Labour is the biggest cost of house building. And during a pandemic, that is almost free, since many people are stuck at home with nothing to do.

I assume it varied greatly by region, but my experience was that it was extremely difficult to find workers during the pandemic response.

It seemed like a combination of fear and restrictions, plus free money at least in the US. I saw hourly rates for physical labor jobs go through the roof, double the pre-response rates and still couldn't fill positions.

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#89

Post by jiveturkey » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 1:12 AM UTC

tpmx wrote: post #5

The chart in the article does a nice job at illustrating that prices are roughly speaking back to essentially pre-pandemic levels after giant spikes. This seems healthy to me.

It's only healthy if prices have been relatively stable for the 5 years prior to that as well. If prices were on a steady rise and then only back to pre-pandemic, this is losing ground to where they should be.

However, in addition, we can see that nominal prices remain stable over multiple 5 year periods. So yes, healthy.

Too bad that this very good presentation on a decent blog has such a clickbait headline. I guess that's the world we live in. Someone somewhere is going to say this is the death of lumber or other such drama, based on just the title of the post though.

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#90

Post by vel0city » Wed, Oct 04, 2023, 1:15 AM UTC

dilyevsky wrote: post #84

londons_explore wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labour is the biggest cost of house building. And during a pandemic, that is almost free, since many people are stuck at home with nothing to do.

You best believe it wasn’t free. Especially for smaller jobs like flooring it’s often priced based on material. Everyone I know in construction was making $$$ in pandemic

I think they were talking about DIY. People couldn't really travel or do things outside the house so they might start home improvement projects themselves where as you might be more inclined to hire if you're busy with outside things.