Escalating wood prices

A recent report on the national news focused on several cities where the price of building a house had dramatically escalated. One of the cities that was featured was Boise. The report said that housing costs were up by approximately 38% from this time last year. Think about that. Talk about inflation. That kind of price escalation is almost unimaginable but Reid Ahlf at the Idaho Forest Group sites one of the factors in prices going up so dramatically. There's there's always been a, ever since the last the Great Recession, there's been a kind of a we didn't build houses at the same rate as we had been before. There's always been this pent up demand. And then all of a sudden people were kind of living in the cities or renting all that kind of stuff. And now all of a sudden people are like, nah, maybe we do want to live in the suburbs and do other things.

Forestry specialist Hank Stelzer says Issues with pests, as well as lumbermills finding sales opportunities overseas, have also impacted supply. He adds that he believes prices will remain high until the end of next year, as supply levels respond to increased demand. However, he suggests a combination of factors may lead to wood arriving from European forests