The High Price of a Modest Roof

Tom Purcell on Apr 19, 2021

The cost of construction materials has gone through the roof - if you can still afford a roof, which isn’t very affordable right now.

All I wanted to do was build a modest roof over my modest deck at my modest house.

But a year of government pandemic policies and the law of unintended consequences have foiled my little dream by driving up the price of lumber.

According to Fortune, the costs of items like plywood and 2x4s increased 193 percent since last spring 2020 and are not done spiking yet.

Thanks to a perfect storm created by the COVID pandemic, two things conspired to drive up the price of lumber.

First, strict government lockdowns and public health restrictions at sawmills slowed down production and limited supply.

Second, America’s vast army of weekend do-it-yourselfers was isolated at home for months with lots of spare time to finally tackle their DIY construction projects.

Making things worse, Fortune says, record low interest rates and a historically tight inventory of existing housing drove up demand for new houses - and therefore lumber.

According to Business Insider, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) found that higher lumber prices have raised the price of an average new family home by nearly $25,000 since last April.

That’s no big deal, according to the fat cats at Goldman Sachs, because interest rates are so low that the cost to finance the higher borrowing for your new McMansion is still relatively affordable.

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