CMU School of Drama


Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Lumber Prices Fall to Fresh 2022 Lows Amid Ongoing Mortgage Rate Spike

markets.businessinsider.com: Lumber prices fell more than 6% to $829 per 1,000 board feet on Tuesday, representing a fresh lows for the commodity in 2022 as rising mortgage rates and higher prices take a bite out of the housing market.

3 comments:

Jessica Williams said...

I remember the 2008 housing crisis very well. I remember my parents watching the news constantly. I remember the trips to the bankruptcy lawyer and the fear in my mother’s eyes every time something in our house broke or needed updating. I have never pretended to know much about the stock market or really economics in general, if I had it my way I would cut a hole in my mattress to store my money instead of banking or investing. I do know, however, that lumber prices have been a particular drag on the theater industry for the last couple of years. They have certainly heavily impacted both the community theater and the High school theater I used to work in. We had to be spectacularly cautious with how and where we used the lumber that we were actually able to purchase let alone the wood that must have been a true antique with how much we reused it for years.

DMSunderland said...

I'm not surprised that prices have fallen given how insanely expensive materials has been. Like the article mentioned, people aren't obsessively doing home renovation projects like they were when the pandemic hit since prices shot up so much.

But it's getting warmer, construction is going to increase in frequency and then we will be into hurricane season. I imagine we will see a steady rise over the course of the summer. Perhaps by mid-late 2023 we can see prices return to what they were before the pandemic began.

Idk, I would like to see that. It always feels so bad telling designers that we can't build the show they want. It especially hurts when we are drastically under budget for labor but the materials estimation is more than twice what the materials budget allows for. It will be nice to have the limitation be our skills and time rather than whether or not we can afford all those 2x4s.

Liberty Lapayowker said...

This article explains a few reasons why lumber prices have fallen and what that means for inflation. I find it interesting how this article mentions the concept that there has been a “slow-down in DIY home renovations” because that demonstrates that people are having less time to do them since the world is picking back up again after covid. Although this drop in lumber prices is majority due to the housing market, this also has an impact in the theatre industry as we continue to utilize the same amount of lumber for production builds. Therefore, although the reason prices are decreasing may not be great for the housing construction market, it will potentially give shops a break from the higher prices they have had to deal with recently. Since it is predicted that these prices might pick back up, I wonder if industries like theatre will stock up on resources like lumbar since it is used steadily, especially in educational scenarios such as CMU.