Highest Prices in a Year Reached for Lumber and Building Materials

People who built a new house this year bought lumber at the lowest prices we have seen in the last 25 years.
[caption id="attachment_1432" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Lumber Futures find new Trading Levels"][/caption]If you put off building a new home this year, you missed the lowest lumber prices in a quarter-century (don't worry yet though, mortgage rates are still low). Although lows for lumber typically occur in November, this year, due to a strange twist of supply and demand fate, November marks the highs for 2009. The invisible market forces of ongoing mill shutdowns / curtailments (reduced supply) and increasing new construction sales / starts (increased demand) have caused nearby lumber futures to jump 70% in only 10 months from near lows that haven't been seen since October 1985.
[caption id="attachment_1433" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Lumber Futures Monthly Nearest"][/caption]
Quantities of both new and existing homes for sale in the Atlanta Athens Georgia area are also at multi-year lows.