Why Minnesota lumber prices are going through the roof

Star Tribune, September 2020

A do-it-yourself home-improvement and construction boom has sent the price of lumber skyrocketing, as sawmills and strand-board manufacturers, including in Minnesota, scramble to keep up with surging demand.

It’s one of the odd business wrinkles of the pandemic. Future prices for random lengths of board are $834 per thousand board feet, triple their April low and about double the typical price in recent years.

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Sunny Bowman, whose family owns Dakota County Lumber in Farmington, said they are low on plywood and a similar product called oriented strand board. They are also out of three-quarter-inch tongue-and-groove wafer board used for roofs and siding. When she calls mills to ask for more, they say no, they can’t even fulfill orders they already have.

“Dad said he’s never seen anything like this before,” Bowman said. “We’ve got a recession and housing bubble and huge demand, but with increasing demand people being home and not spending money on other things. Everybody wants to do a project right now.”