Demand For Lumber Rises As Price Increases, Impacting Homeowners And Homebuilders

SACRAMENTO(CBS13) — Months after a strong storm ripped through our area, some people are still waiting to get their fences fixed as the demand for wood continues to rise.

Lumber prices are going up and it's affecting budgets for home building too.

"It's a little bit of a pain because I can't get in and out of my backyard," said Terry Connitt.

His fence fell victim to January's wild storm. The powerful wind and rain caused so much damage across the region that people are still waiting on repairs as the price for materials suddenly starts to skyrocket.

The demand is keeping lumber yards busy.

"The demand that it created is something that we struggle daily to try to make sure to keep up with, said Chris Berry, Operations Manager Berco Redwood and Berry Lumber.

But it's not just current homeowners feeling the effects. Landmark Builders owner and president John Caulfield says homebuilders are feeling the impact too.

"Mostly in the form of price increases, the lumber prices have just soared and that's affecting budgets, it's affecting some viability of some projects," he said.

He says it mostly started with the pandemic and as the building market took off, production of materials went down while demand continued to climb.

Now it's a battle between supply and pricing.

"Nothing like we have ever seen in the history of our company," Caulfield said.

He's hoping for improvements to the supply chain so move-in dates for families' dream homes aren't affected.

"We need to get this resolved as soon as we can," he explained.

Meantime, Terry is waiting on repairs to his home, adding studier material to his fence this time around.

"Want to make sure it's staying, so we are going with steel posts," he said.