idk its still almost 1.5x as expensive for a 2 by 4 at home depot
The only price I watch is 2x6x10 cedar. They were up to $51 back in April, now they're back down to $33. Still seems high but good enough for me to get back to my projects.
Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater
121–130 of 553 posts
Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait, people were saying/thought that this was runaway inflation and not a result of supply chain issues because of COVID and tons of people suddenly having to spend way more time in their house because of COVID? Maybe I'm ignorant of the inflation argument more than anything else but it doesn't even pass the sniff test in my opinion.
Printing tons of money and handing it out to people who will spend it immediately tends to at least put pressure on prices.
"Pressure" sounds like it's in an entirely different ballpark from "runaway inflation"
Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater
#123I’ve been following these prices closely for most of the year and what’s striking to me is just how wrong nearly all the industry experts were throughout the year. I don’t recall reading a single opinion that was anything other than “prices will remain very high for the foreseeable future.”
Prices will remain high for some goods, but the lumber issue was a supply chain collusion problem.
I believe that the initial shock of high prices was very good for some businesses, and they systematically colluded to sit on inventory. You could physically see it in some places.
But those forces are not as strong as supply and demand so it came back to something approaching reality.
For electronics parts, the pandemic introduced large numbers of speculators who buy and hold parts for gain, those actors create an odd dynamic in the system that would do something like create higher prices, then crash as prices fall and they are forced to sell and the market gets flooded a bit.
Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
its still expensive to borrow $700,000, on top of your current expenses. that's an extra payment of $3300, whos got that laying around to wait for a house to be built
Hang on let me check your other comments in this thread. You do! Most people, when they get a mortgage, they're going deep into debt. You have about that much in liquid assets. You can definitely afford it.
Ehh I think it would be irresponsible to use all my savings like that, plus you need to buy the land to build on and pay for your current place
Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
100% of the analysts that I read, and, if I'm not mistaken, close to 100% of the mill owners recognized that this was a temporary blip, and that lumber would fall back into the $500sh range (There is a natural floor - that's the price at which BC mills no longer make money and start shutting down/curtailing capacity.) None of the mills started expanding or engaging in capital programs to try and take advantage of the…
> None of the mills started expanding or engaging in capital programs to try and take advantage of the increased prices. Oh, nice call out. I wish there was a way for me to get information on stuff like this in general. That is the proxies for the future like you say. Doesn’t have to be profitable. It could be stuff everyone trading lumber futures already knows. Just for curiosity and so I can validate my news source…
This is false, the mills were expanding and the increased throughout increased supply and prices crashed (along with construction work backing out)
https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/news/canadian-news/canada...
This was predictable and extremely profitable trade. I made a lot of money this year from this alone.
The price increase was a result of a usual 90 day delivery for new contracted lumber and nobody anticipating people would actually try to build houses in winter time (which they did). A lot of production was wound down and supply contracted out in the future was pulled to earlier dates leaving future contracted lumber demand unfilled leading to price spike and then a crash after extra supply was brought online.
All the information is available but you have to pay for this. There are companies specializing in getting this info for you daily by calling lumber mills.
Fwiw, timber itself is only up about 10% (comparable with 2010 prices)
Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
my measly half million dollar worth of stocks "only" grew 30%. There's a significant amount of people do that much better than i did? what am i missing?
A bunch of tech stocks doubled in 2020, and some did significantly better than that.
I mean i know some lucky pickers and gamblers probably did better than me but there cant be that many that theyre all driving housing markets up
Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater
#127Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
my measly half million dollar worth of stocks "only" grew 30%. There's a significant amount of people do that much better than i did? what am i missing?
tech stocks, crypto, real estate, etc
people have 6 figure crypto accounts that aren't just already wealthy? this is the norm and they're all buying property and driving up prices?
Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater
#129I’ve been following these prices closely for most of the year and what’s striking to me is just how wrong nearly all the industry experts were throughout the year. I don’t recall reading a single opinion that was anything other than “prices will remain very high for the foreseeable future.”
Someone pointed out some issues with the party line on lumber prices earlier this year:
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/what-lumber-shortage-t...
Could just be ordinary conspiracy speak, or maby there's more to this story after all.
Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater
#130Krugman was right again.
Right about what though? He's like the Piers Morgan of economics, so he could use the win.
Not op, but presumably: that spikes in prices where temporary bounce backs rather than structural switches to high inflationary years.
Which is also the view of the Fed and the ECB, so not a particularly weird position from Krugman.