By NAHBNOW News
Lumber prices have skyrocketed more than 180% since last spring, and this price spike has caused the price of an average new single-family home to increase by $24,386 since April 17, 2020, according to NAHB standard estimates of lumber used to build the average home. Similarly, the market value of the average new multifamily home has increased by $8,998 over the same period due to the surge in lumber prices.
The latest Random Lengths prices as of mid-February show the price of framing lumber topped $975 per thousand board feet — a 180% increase since last April when the price was roughly $350 per thousand board feet.
NAHB calculated these average home price increases based on the softwood lumber that goes into the average new home, as captured in the Builder Practices Survey conducted by Home Innovation Research Labs. Included is any softwood used in structural framing (including beams, joists, headers, rafters and trusses), sheathing, flooring and underlayment, interior wall and ceiling finishing, cabinets, doors, windows, roofing, siding, soffit and fascia, and exterior features such as garages, porches, decks, railing, fences and landscape walls.
The softwood products considered include lumber of various dimensions (including any that may be appearance grade or pressure treated for outdoor use), plywood, OSB, particleboard, fiberboard, shakes and shingles — in short, any of the products sold by U.S. sawmills and tracked on a weekly basis by Random Lengths.