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Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

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Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#501

Post by mywittyname »

bequanna wrote: post #491
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not seeing any 'blowout' prices on new construction in the short term We are in a housing shortage [1] which is driving a home-construction boom [2] powering a construction-labor shortage [3]. Until that labor shortage is resolved, via higher pay (which, depending on the rate of new entrants, will either reduce margins or be permanently passed along to consumers) or via new recruits, raw-materials cost advantag…

> powering a construction-labor shortage I've been discussing with builders for the past few months and they state that the main issue is the lack of low-skilled laborers. They claimed that many workers at that level left >18 months ago and haven't returned due to the protracted, bonus unemployment that they were receiving, which recently has expired. Almost all contractors/builders expect the low-level workers that…

> They claimed that many workers at that level left >18 months ago and haven't returned due to the protracted, bonus unemployment that they were receiving, which recently has expired.

Doubt. I've been on unemployment before. If you're skilled in the slightest, they are putting your ass to work quickly. If you're unskilled, but can lift 30lbs, then they are putting your ass to work pretty quickly. The people managing to run out the clock on unemployment are basically 50+ year old women, or those who are really good at gaming the systems which are not easily gamed.

I built a house in 2018 and there was a huge construction labor shortage even them. Partially due to difficulty getting immigrant workers and partially because people who left the business after 2009 are only recently starting to be replaced.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#502

Post by mywittyname »

reverend_gonzo wrote: post #464
pie42000 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize a massive market crash is coming soon? The quick sugar high from all the stinky $$$ will dry up soon, and then the market will crash. If that happens, expect it to be very cheap to buy a house and a used car when all the people who could barely afford their new car/house find themselves underwater, unemployed, and no longer receiving Covid stimulus checks. But who knows, maybe the economy will just keep b…

They’ve been saying there’s a pending crash for the last five years. I’ve expected it too. The only thing that happens is soon as the market gets skittish, the fed prints money. They seem to be so scared of a recession, or maybe, the poets that be are so leveraged up themselves, that they will do whatever it takes to prevent a crash. My thought is, don’t be so leveraged that you’re the first to collapse when things g…

Try for the past 10 years. 2011 was a big recovery year and people were still screaming about a "double dip recession" coming.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#503

Post by mywittyname »

lordnacho wrote: post #316
tayo42 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

who has all this money to spend? everywhere everything is so expensive. i make a ton, and this doesn't add up. nothing about home prices seems to add up.

I don't get it either, and I'm a hedge fund manager. To my mind nothing seems like it's a sensible price in any of the cities I look at. I mean I get that there's a fair few people making good money who can buy a £2M home, but it doesn't make any sense that there are entire swathes of London where every home is like that. A quick google suggests that a £100K income is in the top 3% in this country, and top 1% is abou…

Isn't London housing driven largely by foreign investment? As in, wealthy people from across the world who are parking capital there because it's safe, not because they care particularly about returns.

If brexit didn't end this, then it's probably a pretty stable system. It sucks for locals, but there are far worse places to over extend yourself on housing than in London.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#504

Post by RobertKerans »

thrwyoilarticle wrote: post #358
RobertKerans wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being valued at £2M doesn't mean you could sell all of them for that price or that the people living in them paid £2M for them But in London these houses do sell, normally very quickly (and bullshit apartments in shiny new blocks that are in same price bracket I guess same, generally they do seem to sell, but I assume that's just parking money for tax purposes so not quite same thing).

That's exactly my point. The demand is far higher than the supply.

Ah, sorry, I misread that. GP has fair points though, whole situation in the UK is crazy, infects everything, it's an arms race

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#505

Post by specialist »

godelski wrote: post #475
JKCalhoun wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only people I saw saying this were the people on mainstream news like CNN or Fox. : > Really the only people that were saying that prices would remain high had a vested interest in keeping it high. Not seeing a connection here.

I really can't tell if this is sarcasm or not but I'll act in good faith that it isn't. Fox has been selling out of control inflation since Obama and once Trump came in the story magically disappeared (even before Trump took office and could make policy decisions) and then after he was gone it reappeared. In fact, the stories appeared even before Biden took office. Similarly stories about the DOW being all time high…

Yes and: more generally, biz based on ad revenue inevitably resort to fear, outrage, and anxiety to juice their numbers.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#506

Post by specialist »

macksd wrote: post #445
bandyaboot wrote: post #8

I’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.”

This was the biggest lesson I learned during my first pre-IPO quiet period. Seemed like everything I read that was inferring things from the S-1 or forecasting the future were immediately wrong or turned out to be wrong in the end. I suspect there's a lot of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect going on in the economy.

"Effect" implies a cause. Any guesses?

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#507

Post by kebman »

rinze wrote: post #244
kebman wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the USA, The Land of the Free and The Land of Opportunity, have so much bureaucracy? Look, I know fire codes are important, and you don't want a building to crumble in around you, but... Seems the building codes in the US are unnecessarily strict. Is it power hungry bureaucrats or exploitation from contractors that has lead to it? And how can the people be given more liberty to build the way they want?

> Why does the USA, The Land of the Free and The Land of Opportunity, have so much bureaucracy? Look, I know fire codes are important, and you don't want a building to crumble in around you, but... Yep, we should leave that to the market. You happen to live in a building that collapses, well, then you can have The Choice(TM) to never inhabit a building made by the same company again (if you're lucky). Eventually they…

I can't dislike you jumping to conclusions, so I'll just leave this sarcastic comment.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#508

Post by bequanna »

mywittyname wrote: post #501
bequanna wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> powering a construction-labor shortage I've been discussing with builders for the past few months and they state that the main issue is the lack of low-skilled laborers. They claimed that many workers at that level left >18 months ago and haven't returned due to the protracted, bonus unemployment that they were receiving, which recently has expired. Almost all contractors/builders expect the low-level workers that…

> They claimed that many workers at that level left >18 months ago and haven't returned due to the protracted, bonus unemployment that they were receiving, which recently has expired. Doubt. I've been on unemployment before. If you're skilled in the slightest, they are putting your ass to work quickly. If you're unskilled, but can lift 30lbs, then they are putting your ass to work pretty quickly. The people managing…

People were not receiving typical unemployment benefits. When you look at the size of the benefit amounts from the perspective of a working class person or Jr Employee, it was a no brainer: Stay at home, make more money.

Check out the number of people who were still receiving unemployment when the federal bonus ran out and compare that to the number of open entry level positions. People were/are absolutely choosing to say home instead of finding work.

Who can blame them! It is the smarter decision.

The US Gov’t should have stepped this down much earlier. Now we have a decent sized group of young people who have spent the better part of two years expecting checks in their mailbox and no student loan payments. Reality is going to hit them hard.

I think our collective charity is running out. IMO, All this is going to result in is childish tantrums demanding “basic income” from able bodied people who are finally being forced to to accept the economic realities of their position.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#509

Post by mywittyname »

shados wrote: post #410
baremetal wrote: post #400

i quit my software job and bought 20 acres of undeveloped farmland. then i got a job on a framing crew so i could learn to build my own house. built a polebarn on the land so far. and getting ready to dig a foundation probably next year. its been the most exciting fulfilling adventure of my life so far. just got first harvest last month.

My friends and I always joke about quitting our software jobs to go work on a farm when things get rough. We're obviously just joking (things are never that bad). But you actually did it and living the meme. Kudos!

I once explained the premise of Stardew Valley* to my partner and they just looked at me and said, "that's a little on the nose isn't it?"

* You play as a character who quits their software engineering job to fix up a run down farm you inherited from your grandpa.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#510

Post by JohnHaugeland »

Kiro wrote: post #163
jrek wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The poster said "I'm legitimately quoting", which doesn't sound like an admission to me.

Read the next part of that sentence.

"Thanks. I'm legitimately quoting, but also prefer use of more specific terms like "tripled" or "fives times more expensive" etc. than common dramatic headlines words like "crushed", "slammed", "blasted", "surged"."

Doesn't seem to support your claim that these are scare quotes at all.

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