What the Rise and Fall of Lumber Prices Reveal about the Pandemic Economy

The rise, fall, and now the volatility of lumber prices tell us three things about the pandemic economy. One of them, per this NPR story, is that even though forecasters say lumber prices may have more room to fall, price volatility creates its own headaches.

“The challenge right now for a builder is, if you’re asked to give someone a price for a home, it’s very difficult,” says Chuck Fowke, a Florida homebuilder and chairman of the National Association of Home Builders. . “We’re used to having prices change every six months or every twelve months. We’re getting price changes every two weeks.”

And even if two-by-fours are no longer propping up inflation, that doesn’t mean prices will return to their pre-pandemic wood floor. So lumber may continue to capture headlines as yet another example of a product upended by the unprecedented pandemic.

It’s kind of like the price of gasoline,” says Dustin Jalbert, an economist at Fastmarket. “Lumber has been the sort of poster child for these supply shocks that we’ve seen.”