Lumber prices increase 180% as Lubbock home builders work to keep costs down

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - According to the National Association of Home Builders, lumber prices have increased more than 180 percent since last spring.

Corey Lusk with Betenbough Homes says he’s never seen lumber prices this high. He says it’s due to a decrease in production of materials because of the pandemic and February’s historic winter storm.

“At Betenbough Homes, we are a cost-plus builder. So when the cost of building materials go up, the price to our home builders goes up. But fortunately, when costs of materials go down, prices go down,” Corey said.

Lusk says home sales for the company are still doing well, but suggests clients could be making little adjustments to their homes.

“More home for less money can look many different ways. They may choose not to put some of the options in the home that they were going to get. Or instead of buying a 2,000 square foot home, they might be buying an 1,800 square foot home.”

According a graph by the National Association of Home Builders, prices were $1,100 per thousand board feet just nearly one week ago, compared to prices in October that were around $500 per thousand board feet.

“That’s a large part of what we do as an affordable home builder, to provide more home for less money...to find other ways to reduce cost in the home.”

The National Association of Homebuilders is working with the government to develop solutions to this sharp increase in lumber prices.

“As cost increases do go up, we are trying to offset those increasing costs in other ways.”

That Association says it causes the average price of a new single-family home to increase by more than $24,000.

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