the price of lumber has gone crazy in Canada

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Sparky617 said:
Home sales and home building are going full blast here in the SE USA (North Carolina). From what I'm seeing we're not alone. With people able to WFH they're looking for more space out in the 'burbs or further away figuring that they will be able to continue WFH for the future. My next door neighbor just sold his house, listed it for $575K, sold without the buyers walking inside the house the night it went on the market for $90K over asking with a substantial due diligence deposit. My wife is an agent, and asking price is just the starting point, and homes don't last on the market for more than a couple of days. Typically they are listed for the weekend and under contract with multiple offers on Monday if not sooner.
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Sparky617 -- Funny you should mention this. My wife and I are downsizing and sold our house in Fayetteville (NC) and bought a 10 acre lot in Lillington, in the country about 50 min away. Like you said, there were multiple offers on the house/lot we wanted and we had to swallow hard on some of the compromises, and we paid $53k over asking price. There is no shop/outbuilding for storage and my "toys", and the yard will require a lot of work. I thought not having this building would give me the opportunity to build what I wanted. Luckily, we got some equity to do a few things, but surprise, the cost to do those things is horrible. Still, folks are driving up the price and timeline for getting anything done. The Morton Building I would like to pursue is being pushed back to Spring 2022, by the builder. He is booked through the rest of the year.

Glad to see you are from Cary. I may need to get some local feedback from you, if not a shoulder to cry on. Right now, the biggest dilemma is internet access. Hughesnet looks like the best option at the moment, and most I've heard is negative. This location is not the best alternative for the WFH concept.

Physically packing/loading/moving stuff to Lillington all this week. The stuff we don't move (substantial) is being sold the weekend of 5/29. (The price of lumber is causing us to consider ripping out my workbenches from the garage.)

Wish me luck.
Rick
 
@Junto So I take it you ended up skipping on that chemical plant-adjacent ranch with the pond? I hope you landed somewhere even nicer in the end.
 
I did. Good memory. There was actually another 49 acre lot we had considered about 5 miles from th at same chemical plant on the Cape Fear River that had high levels of contaminants. Glad we got outbid on that one. Mitigating the water with GAC (granulated activated carbon) filtration for all of our water would have been a pain, although we factored this into our bid. However, I'm sure the folks who outbid us thught they were getting a deal. (When we made that bid we suddenly asked ourselves, "What the hell did we just do?".)
 
Junto said:
I did. Good memory. There was actually another 49 acre lot we had considered about 5 miles from th at same chemical plant on the Cape Fear River that had high levels of contaminants. Glad we got outbid on that one. Mitigating the water with GAC (granulated activated carbon) filtration for all of our water would have been a pain, although we factored this into our bid. However, I'm sure the folks who outbid us thught they were getting a deal. (When we made that bid we suddenly asked ourselves, "What the hell did we just do?".)
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Good to see you skipped that property. As far as you paying 53K over asking, that's why I would have to rent somewhere after I sold, at least until the market stabilized. Granted, I would probably get a nice amount over asking now, but that would wash with the new house and when the market tumbles, I would be underwater.
 
Flyover said:
My understanding (which could be wrong) is most of our lumber comes from China.
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No it comes from Canada, In fact we supply so much to the USA they put on a tariff because they our wood was too cheap they could not compete . Apparently now the USA is removing the tariff , the lumber companies are salivating going to sell wood at 5 times the price it cost .
 
Junto said:
Sparky617 -- Funny you should mention this. My wife and I are downsizing and sold our house in Fayetteville (NC) and bought a 10 acre lot in Lillington, in the country about 50 min away. Like you said, there were multiple offers on the house/lot we wanted and we had to swallow hard on some of the compromises, and we paid $53k over asking price. There is no shop/outbuilding for storage and my "toys", and the yard will require a lot of work. I thought not having this building would give me the opportunity to build what I wanted. Luckily, we got some equity to do a few things, but surprise, the cost to do those things is horrible. Still, folks are driving up the price and timeline for getting anything done. The Morton Building I would like to pursue is being pushed back to Spring 2022, by the builder. He is booked through the rest of the year.

Glad to see you are from Cary. I may need to get some local feedback from you, if not a shoulder to cry on. Right now, the biggest dilemma is internet access. Hughesnet looks like the best option at the moment, and most I've heard is negative. This location is not the best alternative for the WFH concept.

Physically packing/loading/moving stuff to Lillington all this week. The stuff we don't move (substantial) is being sold the weekend of 5/29. (The price of lumber is causing us to consider ripping out my workbenches from the garage.)

Wish me luck.
Rick
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Maybe we could meet IRL sometime after you're settled in. There are some good breweries between Lillington and Cary.
 
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Sparky617 said:
Regarding fast food, there is a supply chain problem/shortage right now with boneless/skinless chicken breasts and wings. Last year they had problems with no workers to handle work at the processing plants and birds being ready for slaughter/processing. The chicken we eat has been bred to grow pretty quickly something like 5 or 6 weeks from hatching to harvest and they get too big if they aren't harvested within a specific window.

Tariffs didn't help with lumber, and there have also been problems with beetle kills in the NW USA and western Canada where a lot of lumber comes from. The WSJ had a good article on lumber yesterday. I'll try to post it but it may be behind the paywall.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/despit...ing-11621243982?mod=searchresults_pos3&page=1
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I have been close to the poultry industry on many levels for a long time and the issue with poultry supply was a couple things. First the demand from restaurants dropped a bunch with the early shut downs. Some processing plants are set up to package for commercial/institutional use, restaurants, schools, etc. That demand dropped precipitously. Meanwhile plants that packaged for consumers were swamped, couldn't keep. Add in plant closures. So when those things happened growers increased time between flocks (called layout) because many had nowhere to send birds so it was a mismatch of growing and processing. BTW you are correct most commercial birds are a Cornish cross and are ready at 5 or 6 weeks, big birds (roasters and for cut up) are 8 weeks.

The lumber thing I understand was a lot of mill closures early on. Demand went through the roof for all the reasons others have stated but you also have to consider the government has pumped trillions into the economy helping make the demand issue far worse imo. We are still planning an addition but might wait another year. I have read there may be some relief at the end of the building season. With another huge round of government spending on the horizon I wonder if that will happen.
 
68bucks said:
I have been close to the poultry industry on many levels for a long time and the issue with poultry supply was a couple things. First the demand from restaurants dropped a bunch with the early shut downs. Some processing plants are set up to package for commercial/institutional use, restaurants, schools, etc. That demand dropped precipitously. Meanwhile plants that packaged for consumers were swamped, couldn't keep. Add in plant closures. So when those things happened growers increased time between flocks (called layout) because many had nowhere to send birds so it was a mismatch of growing and processing. BTW you are correct most commercial birds are a Cornish cross and are ready at 5 or 6 weeks, big birds (roasters and for cut up) are 8 weeks.

The lumber thing I understand was a lot of mill closures early on. Demand went through the roof for all the reasons others have stated but you also have to consider the government has pumped trillions into the economy helping make the demand issue far worse imo. We are still planning an addition but might wait another year. I have read there may be some relief at the end of the building season. With another huge round of government spending on the horizon I wonder if that will happen.
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The mismatch between how the processors were packaging the chickens and what was selling took a while to work out. The consumer market just doesn't have the need for a 50 lb case of chickens. Most people don't have a deep freeze to handle quantities like that. Same thing with the great 2020 toilet paper shortage. TP for the commercial market it packaged in cardboard cases with 100 rolls or more. It also tends to be single ply TP with all the absorbency of copier paper. People working from home needed more TP to account for being at home all day. Of course there was some panic buying as people just didn't know how the market was going to respond. If the paper manufacturers decided to stay closed for a long period of time because they weren't deemed "essential" running out could have been a possiblity.

I grew tired of the keyboard warriors proudly saying how they stayed home and can't understand why everyone doesn't. All the while they're ordering up a storm from Amazon, or curbside delivery at the local Target or Walmart. Like that stuff just picks itself in the store/warehouse and delivers itself to your house like magic. Some jobs can't be done from home.
 
If you like what government meddling did to the economy with COVID you'll love what it will do with global warming.
 
The government spent (spends) big bucks trying to achieve a balance of nature in Yellowstone. Truth is there is no balance of nature one can only watch the trends. Meddling can be like introducing rabbits to Australia or Kudzu to WNC and north GA. Of course the Aussies make Akuruba hats out of rabbit fur but what can we do with Kudzu?
 
I don't want an alternative either but the government has deep pockets and doesn't have a clue to the damage it can do by throwing money at the latest ridiculous cause.
 
Are we still talking about the price of lumber? Seems like schizophrenic socialist-libertarian hour has started. I would rather stay on topic. When do we expect lumber prices to go back down? Are the mills at capacity yet? Is something keeping the big box hardware stores from competing? Or is it all hinging on consumers to go back to the office and stop wanting to DIY so much?
 
Flyover said:
Are we still talking about the price of lumber? Seems like schizophrenic socialist-libertarian hour has started. I would rather stay on topic. When do we expect lumber prices to go back down? Are the mills at capacity yet? Is something keeping the big box hardware stores from competing? Or is it all hinging on consumers to go back to the office and stop wanting to DIY so much?
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I've seen a number of articles on the housing situation lately. One from a few months ago said that builders have sold a year's worth of inventory so far this year. And this was a few months ago. They are running out of land ready for development and you don't exactly take a raw piece of land and throw a housing development on it overnight. Approvals and site preparation takes many, many months before the development is ready to start selling lots/homes. Riding my bike around Wake, Chatham, and Durham counties (NC) there are a lot of homes being built right now. One subdivision that opened middle of last year with $750K and up homes is sold out. I don't think any of the homes are completed yet, some are foundations, others are covered in Tyvek. My own neighborhood is 19-25 years old and there are a lot of improvement projects going on around the neighborhood. New kitchens, bathrooms, screened porches, etc. A neighbor on my street who is retired is adding a first floor master bedroom, bathroom and screened porch to his existing 3 BR house. My next door neighbor just sold his house $90K over asking the evening it went on the market. I was riding through the Preston Country Club last week and saw a vacant lot where a $750K (or more) home once stood. It backed to the fairway and I'm sure something north of $2M will be built in its place. You don't tear down a 25 year old house that is worth $750K to build a $1M house. You've got too much tied up in the the building lot. Around here other than the tear downs to build new, most homes are in new subdivisions. There just aren't that many single lots available to build on.

So will it end? Who knows? The demand is still there but builders and developers are scrambling to find new parcels to build on. It will take time to get the raw land west of me ready for another subdivision.
 
I hope this doesn't sound as much like the early 2000s as it does to others...
 
Everyone loves the government when they get the benefit as do around 50% of us. Even me, I am a have but I carefully planned my life it wasn't handed to me. I volunteered for the draft in order to get a two year hitch in the Army to get the GI bill. I used the GI bill to get a BSEE, built my own house in order to remain debt free, worked for NASA and got an early retirement which y'all are paying for. However I still think the government meddles and can't properly manage money. There are a great number of gov agencies we could live without and save a lot of money.
 
I just joined a committee for my HOA and we met for the first time last night...it's kinda scary how a bunch of people get together in a room, and given a little bit of power to collect money, make rules, etc. no matter what their ideological principles might have been before stepping into that room, once they were in there it was all "how do I get my little pet peeve added to the list of things that are not allowed" and "let's ask for just a little more money to cover it, it's just a few more bucks per year, people can afford it". The whole "we could live without it" mentality is completely absent.

So that's government at the smallest scale, I wonder if it's the same dynamic at larger scales.

I just hope the lumber market stabilizes soon and that this isn't some new paradigm shift ushering in a new normal.
 
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