Good News About Lumber For Homeowners And Do-It-Yourselfers In NY

This summer could be the summer of completed projects for your home.  There is some really good news about lumber for homeowners and do-it-yourselfers.

Get our free mobile app

Remember when you were going to build a garden or redo that room in your house that you were staring at every day during the pandemic?  You had all this time on your hands to make improvements, but then suddenly the price of wood skyrocketed!

Why was lumber so expensive during the pandemic?

There were a couple of reasons why the price of lumber went up so much.  The first is that a lot of the mills were running with a diminished labor force.  In order to avoid people getting together, many workers were either laid off or given fewer hours.  That slowed the production of lumber a lot.

Add to that the fact that people had a lot more time to build things and fix things around their homes and they were gobbling that lumber up a lot faster.

So, to keep up with the demand, unfortunately, lumber began to be sold at a premium price.

Prices have begun to drop and stabilize

The good news is that now that there are a lot of people back to work, those prices have begun to not only go back down but they're starting to stabilize there.  According to WHEC in Rochester, it's almost a quarter of the price that it was just a year ago.

"Lumber dropped from $1,600 per thousand board feet down to around $400 for the same length."

Now is the time to buy if you're planning a project

So, the prices have begun to drop again but they won't stay that way.  Obviously that demand is going to go back up again as we get closer to summer and people begin construction projects again on their houses.

If you're planning a project for this summer, now is the time to get the lumber for it.