Lumber prices too high

[mike_belben]

 :D

[YellowHammer]

I just paid, wholesale, $9.96 per bdft for 8/4 FAS walnut, so it went up again.  White oak at between $6.50 and $5 per bdft, so it's still sky high.  I'm not seeing any drop at all in prices.  I am seeing a distinct drop in quality.  Rocker (yes, the catalog lumber store) called and offered to buy my wood, so it means they are getting pinched, also.  

Oddly enough, and this is really odd, I am paying the exact same per bdft price for exotics as before, from multiple sources.  Zero change in price over the last year. For example, prime African mahogany at $5 per bdft (the same as white oak now) and genuine 8/4 Honduran Mahogany at $8.50 per bdft which is less than 8/4 walnut.  

[mike_belben]

Velly intellesting. 

[SwampDonkey]

Have not even been to town to buy hardwood lumber for years. I know the last time I looked about 7 years ago, it was double the price 3 years before. And the Walnut looked like reject stuff, full of defect. If I wanted maple or birch these days, I would just go to the mill and get it green and air dry it myself. This other guy is just a high priced handler. :D The place used to be 3 big warehouse buildings, awhile back a new owner took over and working out of a barn. Nothing is climate controlled so MC is certainly not 12%. His page doesn't post pricing either. :D

[teakwood]

Zero change in price over the last year.

Zero change in Teakprices either. since the 30-50% pricedrop after 2018, hindu buyers price drop. we haven't seen any rise in price over the last 3 years. 
Good thing all my trees are in the larger diam category already (10-12"and up,  15+ years) and i went from roundwood international sale to milled timber national sale. and lately i went from timber to semiproduct sales, custom paneling. my prices increased 2500%, of course it's more work and more waste of wood 

[nativewolf]

White Oak and Walnut are sky high.  I've spent the summer trying to close 2 jobs.  The white oak would be epic...the walnut has closed I think- decent volume but all small (converting to ag).  I feel less comfortable about the white oak- property is for sale and the wealthy person that owns it is not even close to here so i have to work through 2 others but the trees are just dying, maybe lost 10% this summer alone.   We hear european buyers are going to offer veneer pricing on the 12" diameter logs for the walnut tract.  I'm just shocked, 12" veneer?  What in the world.

Anyway, WO veneer would hit $7 on this stand all day long if it is clean up to double but no triple logs, with trucking fees of 1500/load paid by buyer.  QS is at $2.50-2 (2 sided big).  The big change is a bump of 3 sided veneer up to $3.5 (didn't ask for it) so I am thinking that by late fall we may see $4/bdft for a 3 sided veneer in rift (21" and up) logs.  Now that's a banging price on a 3 sided log when doyle is really not killing your scale due to the size.  I am going to weep a bit if we don't get that stand as the WO is starting to really die off.  

[moodnacreek]

That's an informative post. When I first started sawing red oak paid more than white.

[customsawyer]

OSB is down to 15 and change around here. 2x4x8 spf was mid 3s. Folks are still spending like crazy. I've had two customers in the last month with special orders that had to come buy and pick up their copy of the invoice. They then went to the bank and got checks from the bank for the half down payment. Both were driving new vehicles costing north of 50 grand. One of the orders was around $3500.00 and the other was close to 6 grand. It doesn't make sense to me to be spending money you don't have, but to each their own. 

[YellowHammer]

As of last week, No. 1 common white oak 4/4 was more expensive than FAS Red oak.  

What's even more astounding is that FAS poplar is now more expensive than FAS red oak, at least it was last week.

No.1 common Hickory is double what it was last year, with big manufacturers refusing to saw in this hot weather.  So the prices are staying up, and I'm buying and sawing hickory logs, along with poplar and other stuff.

[moodnacreek]

As of last week, No. 1 common white oak 4/4 was more expensive than FAS Red oak.  

What's even more astounding is that FAS poplar is now more expensive than FAS red oak, at least it was last week.

No.1 common Hickory is double what it was last year, with big manufacturers refusing to saw in this hot weather.  So the prices are staying up, and I'm buying and sawing hickory logs, along with poplar and other stuff.

Hickory for high grade in hot weather?  Might need 12' to get 8'

[Don P]

Just got off the phone with another builder. He needed 16' 2x12's but 24'ers were cheaper, its a crazy world.

[moodnacreek]

Just got off the phone with another builder. He needed 16' 2x12's but 24'ers were cheaper, its a crazy world.

24's either just came in or are old stock. Some dealers hold there original retail price.

[nativewolf]

As of last week, No. 1 common white oak 4/4 was more expensive than FAS Red oak.  

What's even more astounding is that FAS poplar is now more expensive than FAS red oak, at least it was last week.

No.1 common Hickory is double what it was last year, with big manufacturers refusing to saw in this hot weather.  So the prices are staying up, and I'm buying and sawing hickory logs, along with poplar and other stuff.

Hickory for high grade in hot weather?  Might need 12' to get 8'

We visited a major flooring plant 2 weeks ago and they said that 1 common WO was too pricey for them ...I think it was $14xx/mbf.  I didn't even look at the hickory pricing, where is that today?  
We thought we'd be taking off quite a bit of side lumber but frankly it was just too little to fool with.  If the tree has 16' it makes a fence board.  Too much wane and it goes in our pile of seconds which we still sell for $1.10/bdft.  So we are just cutting the one product.  If we have flare on one end we cut our blocking out of it.
Even then it has taken all summer to get this old mill and novice users (my son and I) cutting true 1x6x16's.  Working out now and so we just saw a few hundred and are bushed every day.  A log deck with a turner and waste removal are the next purchases.  We could cut 400 a day if not dealing with loading and waste to quite the extent we are.  
I thought YHs comments on declining quality of WO and Walnut were the most interesting.  That screams supply of high quality logs is drying up.

[mike_belben]

glad your sawmill is doing what you bought it for. 

[gspren]

Not lumber but still part of building, 12-2 with ground romex dropped 10% this week from $160. to $144.40 for a 250' roll.

[mike_belben]

Today i was informed the "rate on trees has gone up to a thousand dollars each."

I will be sure to bring a bunch of trees in soon. 

[so il logger]

Today i was informed the "rate on trees has gone up to a thousand dollars each."

I will be sure to bring a bunch of trees in soon.

People read stuff online and go from there.. This is why I have ignored a certain member when asked pricing info to my locale. 
Landowner is paid very very well for the once in a lifetime harvest yet money has to be made on my end with all the risk and logistics of taking that tree from standing to market. 

[Al_Smith]

As luck would have it in the last 3 plus months doing repairs on a rental house because I'm a hoarder I did not need to buy one piece of lumber .That included some white oak flooring .Although the project was labor intensive it went well all things considered .

[mike_belben]

money is worth nothing when there is no stuff to exchange it for.  take your money to a desert island by yourself and it is only useful for toilet paper, fire starting and a poor grade note pad.  maybe you could scoop water with it.  


its the stuff you get with money that has value.  if you can gather and store all the stuff youll need for life on your own little mental island, youre already rich. the number of dollars that it costs to replace you stuff will just keep rising. the number of dollars it takes to acquire the stuff you havent already collected will keep rising too.  so get the stuff as quickly as you can before it costs more.  and always looks to buy it second hand after the first owner suffered the depreciation. my favorite place to shop is a scrapyard, by the pound. 

[Al_Smith]

Just about anything can be "recycled " into some other use .You're only limited by your imagination of seeing how to do it .Some people have the ability and some do not .It's been labeled as "Yankee ingenuity " or how to think outside  of the box .A term first coined during the industrial revolution .Some times I think it's a blessing some times almost a curse .

[SwampDonkey]

2x4" CDN $550/th this week

OSB CDN $18/sheet

[sawguy21]

This has been a complete gong show! Word this morning is western Canadian softwood producers are scaling back because of oversupply and reduced demand but the fires are also going to be a major factor. Futures traders are probably drinking heavily. :D

[SwampDonkey]

Locally 2" x 6" x 16' are $25 for premium, #2 is $23
7/16" OSB $30 a sheet.

For some reason a lot higher than in Yarmouth, NS. By about $10 apiece. :

[Hilltop366]

Cuz were special :laugh:

My brother priced some lumber last week thinking/hoping the prices went down but it was only the 8' 2"x4" that had dropped to pre pandemic prices. Pressure treated was cheaper than non treated, the guy at the store said that one guy framed his house with pressure treated (he asked the building inspector first).

Another lumber yard has been selling a lot of ¾" birch plywood because it was cheeper than spruce or fir.

[HemlockKing]

Interesting times