JACKSONVILLE, Ark. — Lumber prices haven't been anywhere close to "cheap" these days.
"So it's triple, at least," Troy Hunter, President at Whit Davis Lumber Plus in Jacksonville, said.
And for something we use every day to build things, lumber is looking a lot more like a luxury right now.
"The only problem is demand didn't slow," Hunter said. "The houses are still out there to build."
While prices have been sky high for months – a single 2x6x16 peaked at $25.50 in May – prices are starting to trend downward.
"Things have been pretty high, and I think looking back at it, we all knew we couldn't sustain these numbers for very long," Hunter said. "It's kind of slacked off recently."
Not by much, though.
Other lumber, like a 2x6, normally costs three dollars. Currently, Hunter sells those for nine dollars.
They've been priced as high as twelve dollars.
Now though, we're starting to see a leveling off of sorts.
"We're somewhere in the middle," Hunter said. "We're probably down about 25%. It's still going to be pricey and I don't think that's going to change for quite some time."
As far as understanding why this is happening, we've go to look back over a decade.
"You'd have to go back, I think, to 2008 when the recession started," Hunter said. "A lot of builders that were in got out, only the builders who were highly capitalized were able to remain in the market and continue building, and they did. They weren't able to build enough houses to meet the demand we have now."
Despite higher lumber costs, houses still need built, even if a 2x4 is double the cost.
As far as when we could see a return to normal prices, Hunter says it could be over a year.
"Definitely cheaper now than it was 30 days ago, and I don't know how far down it's going to go. When people ask questions, I kind of have the same answers that the people we deal with when we buy do," Hunter said. "I wish I could tell you what was going to happen, but I don't know."