Rising price of lumber impacting almost everything you buy

The price increase impacts almost everything people buy.

A new single-family home is up around $36,000 more expensive right now, according to the National Association of Homebuilders. That increase is driven, in part, by the rising cost of lumber.

"Those are record levels," said Tim Kraft, a professor at North Carolina State University Poole College of Management.

Kraft said lumber suppliers cut production, assuming the pandemic would bring an economic downturn.

"Instead, there was a big boom," he added.

Lumber demand skyrocketed for homes and home improvement projects.

"That huge spike in demand, combined with that initial pulling back on capacity and production has really created a gap in supply and demand," Kraft said.

Piles of lumbers are 'like gold,' says local builder

Troubles with transportation and tariffs of lumber from Canada also play a part.

It’s not just the big ticket items, like houses, that are affected. Some are small enough to fit in a grocery cart.

The cost of wood pallets have gone up from around $10 to as high as $15.

"That may not sound like a lot but realize that almost every product we buy, ship or sell at some point is on a pallet somewhere," Kraft said.

Kraft said it's hard to predict when prices will return to normal."

"Don't expect these prices to go down until potentially the fall," he estimated.

Lumber continues to be an important part of the forest sector of North Carolina's economy. In 2019, that industry contributed $34.9 billion in industry output.