how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could afford to chuck wood?

 

Price of wood per 1,000 feet futures (from NASDAQ)

 What in Sam's Hill has happened to the price of lumber?

Supply and demand, apparently. Suppliers hedged that the economy wasn't going to recover as quickly, so they backed off supply, so when demand came back stronger than expected, the supply wasn't there. That has doubled the price of lumber since last June and has quadrupled since early 2020 (see chart above). This is driving up new home costs by $24,000 to $35,000. A friend of a friend says that their lumber bill went up $70,000 from soft bid to build bid. Yikes! Our cabin builder, who is currently repenciling our project, says that it's also taking three to four months to get the lumber after he orders it. Yippety-yikes!

Prognosticators say it won't be until the fall at the earliest that we see relief.