Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Lumber free fall to below pre pandemic levels
Bill Tindall, E.Tn.
After retreating from record highs lumber stabilized for a few weeks. This week it collapsed in a 3 day free fall to BELOW pre-pandemic levels. It is predicted that retailers stuck with inventory bought at high prices will attempt to keep prices high for a while.
Apparently people would rather vacation than build decks when given a choice.
Re: Lumber free fall to below pre pandemic levels
Barry Irby
I bought a stack of OSB that has foil on one side. I KNOW it was sitting up on the very top rake at the Blue Borg long before the Pandemic but they did not hesitate to raise the prices and charge me at least four times it's previous price. They may have to eat some of that cake on the way down.
I was discussing this with someone else...
David Weaver
..but not about lumber. The habit in general for retailers (if they can) to increase prices with futures and then create a different spot when the futures fall.
The gas stations in one of the main areas here are superb at it (and they are convenient enough that they get away with it) - the less convenient stations are faster to fall.
The lumber thing was predictable given that there's no shortage of logs.
Separately, my neighbor is fixing some things on his deck. He purchased all pressure treated parts 15 years ago from home depot. They've changed the style since then. Their decking prices are also (or at least were) unbelievably high, and I guess a while ago, so was lowes.
Two weekends ago, home depot had nothing in stock (he flips houses and has a commercial account there), so he drove to lowes again and whoever is making the spindles and rails is using an identical profile in look and proportion to his originals, and they're half the price that HD had the same day. He doesn't follow commodity markets, and I suggested the likely reason (that lowes was just faster to follow the market down than home depot), but he wants to cancel his HD account over it. 
Re: Lumber free fall to below pre pandemic levels
Clint Searl
The mills are catching up with the timber glut, so now there's more lumber than builders can absorb, depressing prices all the way up and down the chain.
Re: Lumber free fall to below pre pandemic levels
Jim DeLaney, Austintown, Ohio
I was in Home Depot (in NE Ohio) earlier today. They had half inch OSB marked $40.88 per sheet. No trickle down yet...
Re: Lumber free fall to below pre pandemic levels
John Foster
Maybe some of the big box stores can gouge the homeowner on lumber prices. I work at a lumber yard that services big builders over a wide geographic area. There is no way we can pad our margins, it is a total dog eat dog commodity market. If another supplier is selling lumber for a cent or two less a foot than we are, we have to match it or pack up and go home.
Re: Lumber free fall to below pre pandemic levels
Joe in a Cleveland suburb
I have put off (yet again) replacing the rotting away back of my garage, and roof, this summer because of lumber prices.
Does this mean I can no longer use that excuse?
Please don't let my wife know the prices are down...
Prices holding here......
Tim Greif - West of Chicago
I took this pic yesterday at Menards. I paid $12.50 /sheet for this same stuff back in 2019 pre-pandemic. Also checked the price of their hardwood plywood. 1/2" sheet of maple veneer ply is still $94. Seems they are still holding prices up on stuff held in inventory. Not that I find that particularly surprising for the Chicago suburbs though. 
Re: Lumber free fall to below pre pandemic levels *LINK*
Mark Hennebury
This was posted on the Canadian woodworking website last week, Apparently there is no shortage of lumber.
Quebecs lower st laurence area.
click the link.
stacks of lumber in a yard.
Re: Lumber free fall to below pre pandemic levels
Re: Lumber free fall to below pre pandemic levels
TomD
Great! Lets hope it backs up all the way into my yard.
I do like a 2x6 as much as the next guy, but I have to say that the fun part during the ramp up was seeing 1088 marine plywood, the absolute best stuff, next maybe to aircraft certified birch, available for half what it cost to buy some rough flooring ply starved for glue. I have nearly 60 sheets in the shed at the moment.
Re: Lumber free fall to below pre pandemic levels
Mark Nowicki
Spare a sheet, I recently bought a sailboat and have a soft spot in the cockpit floor....
Re: Lumber free fall to below pre pandemic levels
John Foster
It is tough to gauge lumber supply by what you see in a yard. We can have over 100 lifts of 2x4 16' (294 pcs. per lift) stacked in the yard and if you checked inventory we would still be over committed by 1,000's of pieces. Time of year is also a factor, many suppliers of pressure treated wood and engineered floor systems offer winter booking deals, it is typical to see huge inventories of these products early in the season and scant inventories late in the season. On the flip side, in our truss yard if there are no trusses around it means we are very busy; if you see lots of manufactured trusses ready for shipping it means that we are caught up on orders and working ahead.
Thanks for insight
Bill Tindall, E.Tn.
The not so obvious value of WoodCentral is the breadth of expertise in topics other than how to build a table. We are/will be building 17 bridges. The one I am working on now required a trailer load of treated lumber. That tip on buying in the winter will be useful when purchasing for future bridges. If one knows about opportunities for reducing cost it might be possible to take advantage of them..