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Lumber prices down 11% YoY

calculatedriskblog.com

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Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#131

Supposedly, wholesale chicken wings are lower than pre-pandemic prices. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/chicken-wing-price... I've yet to find a restaurant, however, where menu prices for wings aren't at least 20% higher than 2019 or so -- often much higher. Similarly, I have a hard time believing that lower lumber prices will reduce new construction costs.

The cost of labor to cook those chicken wings has gone up. (about 20% or so since 2020)

But labor is, essentially, a fixed cost. Once a cook is working a shift, it costs the restaurant nothing extra (or a very small marginal amount) in labor to cook one additional order of wings. Most restaurants' problem is not the cost of labor, but the fact that expensive labor is idle much of the time. Lowering prices to increase volume would, in many cases, be a much better strategy, especially for a local restaurant which is starting out at a disadvantage compared to chains, which can purchase much larger volumes of food at lower prices.

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#132

Always thought it'd be cool if there was some economic simulation game (simcity, city skylines, etc.) that was tied to real life commodity markets.

This often backfires on your game design. Like in escape from tarkov, where booming bitcoin prices made any player with GPUs very rich ingame. (also, tying the weather system to moscow weather led to people being annoyed at the constant rain) I'd be interested to see someone attempt market manipulation IRL to affect their game though.

Classic Tarkov issue. Real bitcoin ruined the economy for a bit.

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#133

I track price of the gloves. Box of gloves is very close to pre covid level. Used to be $2/box in 2019. now you can get it around $2.5 box.

$2.50/box today relative to $2.00/box in 2019 represents +25% inflation...so nowhere near purported pre-COVID levels.

CPI less food and energy[1] over the same period increased +17.3%...so currently priced worse than nominal inflation.

Of course, this baseline reference assumes shrinkflation hasn't impacted your "box" unit.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=19FTW

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#134

Lumber prices seen all over the place when I search for various species of hardwood. Is there a standard online retailer to reference?

Not really because its so regionally dependent - prices can vary dramatically within even 100 miles. I just picked up a bunch of of black walnut for $12.80/bdft, but I could get it for around $8 if I drove a couple hours south.

That seems surprising nobody has picked up on that arbitrage opportunity.

Is it because most lumber volume is performed under commercial contracts? The DIY market is too small to chase?

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#135

I track price of the gloves. Box of gloves is very close to pre covid level. Used to be $2/box in 2019. now you can get it around $2.5 box.

$2.50/box today relative to $2.00/box in 2019 represents +25% inflation...so nowhere near purported pre-COVID levels. CPI less food and energy[1] over the same period increased +17.3%...so currently priced worse than nominal inflation. Of course, this baseline reference assumes shrinkflation hasn't impacted your "box" unit. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=19FTW

>> $2.50/box today relative to $2.00/box in 2019 represents +25% inflation...so nowhere near purported pre-COVID levels.

Annualized, that is 5.7% inflation. (1.25 increase ^ 0.25 for 4 years elapsed). So not pre-covid levels, but not nominal 25% annual inflation. Still a little over 2x desired annual growth rate.

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#136

I track price of the gloves. Box of gloves is very close to pre covid level. Used to be $2/box in 2019. now you can get it around $2.5 box.

25% inflation over 4 years is still substantial. If the contents are even still the same size.

Same size is important. There's likely also 12-15% shrinkflation that increases this significantly.

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#137
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

Built an entire house at the peak :(

It sucked but plans were in motion pre-covid and waiting a year (or two? Who knew back then) would have meant missing the window that minimized disrupting our kids' school lives.

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#138
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Construction prices are still elevated due to labor shortages, lumber is only a minor component. And don't say "so pay labor more" because there is a labor shortage in every single industry. If you pay more for job x, job y will also go up, until everyone goes up and then inflation is higher.

There is no labor shortage. US prime age employment is far below that of other rich countries. We have a huge amount of slack. And yes, "just pay more" is the solution. There is no shortage of Lamborghinis, but there is a shortage at $1000. Machine operators near me are paid $12/hour, the equivalent of 2009's minimum wage after inflation adjustment. Yes, wages are too low. Yes, it's good to pay more money and for eve…

> Yes, it's good to pay more money and for everyone to be forced to pay more money for wages.

You might not have thought that through - if you actually did that, then everything costs more, and there is no net change in affordability. All you did was cause inflation.

If you want to help everyone, without drawbacks, then increased productivity is the way to go. Then things are cheaper. Services are harder to improve though.

> There is no labor shortage.

Unemployment is historically low, so that's not correct.

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#139
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

Material costs are not a lot over half the cost of building (in my experience), and lumbar isn’t all of that.

Sometimes timing matters more than other factors.

Re: Lumber prices down 11% YoY

#140
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Florida, citrus greening has devastated the groves.

That... and grubby land grabs, cavalier/deranged development (Lennar), and ignorant newcomers who think making a subtropical keystone ecosystem conform to their hell of previous residence is justified by exorbitant checks and brutal disregard.

I’m interested to understand your concerns - is there one issue that you’d be able to expand on?
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