Hartford, WI – Paul Faust has been with East Side Lumber in Hartford for 42 years. He has been doing sales and purchasing since about 1987 and he has never seen anything like the current market.
“Lumber has always had patterns as far as buying and selling and this past year has been basically a year like no other,” Faust said. “Nobody could predict this and anybody who has been doing this a long time has never seen this.”
What Faust and others in the building/construction industry are seeing is unprecedented demand, unprecedented shortage in materials, not enough raw material to supply the demand, and extended lead times to get the materials.
“Lumber is still in high demand and people continue to purchase even at the high prices,” he said.
The reason for the push, according to Faust, can be tied to this past year where people were not able to go to work.
“People were not being able to do normal things so they have been trapped in their homes,” he said. “Then they do projects like building home offices, building garages, basements and money has been cheap so there is still demand to build houses. The demand for new homes is there so that’s what has created the whole supply and demand imbalance.”
With an eye to the future, Faust said his prediction critically hinges on what happens to interest rates and if people keep working.
“We will still have a lot of demand because young families and the next generation is starting families so the demand will continue. I think we’re at the top end of the scale as far as pricing,” he said.
Faust said he “feels pretty confident for the future of building.”
“We are continuing to buy,” he said. “You have to be proactive and continue to buy and we have the supplies.”
It had been rumored the price of lumber may double or even triple in the coming month.
“Spring prices will be lower and as the year goes on people get busier and prices escalate,” he said. “If hurricanes come ashore this season then prices will go up. Building lumber, panels, treated lumber we are at 300% inflated number from what we saw pre-covid last year.”
Faust asked customers to “be patient with us. This is something we haven’t seen before.”
