Lumber Prices Continue to Fall – When Will the Consumer See Lower Prices?

Between 2020 and 2021, the average price of lumber in Canada increased by approximately 300%. The increase largely the result of a boon in home construction and renovation projects during the COVID-19 pandemic, and lumber producers reducing production levels and other supply chain issues.

Lumber prices have ebbed and flowed in 2022, in time with increases and declines in demand. At the wholesale level prices peaked in early March but began to slide through early June, and experts predict that the lumber price bubble will burst sometime this summer.

One of those experts is Paul Jannke, Principal in Lumber at Forest Economic Advisors LLC., (FEA). Jannke said, “Retail prices should drop. Absolutely. It does take about three to four months for wholesale prices to feed through to retail pricing. So, I would think sometime fairly soon over the next month or two, we should start to see lower prices at the hardware store as well. From a retail perspective, it could be August.”

Jannke added, “So, if it were me and I was looking to do a project that I had the potential to delay on, I would delay until late in the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter. Even if prices do start to come off now, we’ll see them start to come off more sharply later in the year. I would wait until later on in the year until the demand goes down seasonally and some of these lower prices start to feed through,”