Pricey Lumber Is Making It Harder to Build Low-Income Homes
Affordable housing builders are being forced to scale back projects amid escalating construction costs.
A Habitat for Humanity construction site in Atlanta on May 26, 2020.
Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage for The Washington Post via Getty Images
A quadrupling of lumber costs in the past year is not only sidelining many first-time homebuyers in the U.S. — it’s also shutting out those most in need of affordable housing.
Though prices for wood products have cooled from peaks reached in recent months, strong demand for new U.S. homes threatens to keep prices elevated, and there appears to be little relief ahead. A construction boom has also strained supplies of other building materials, lifting the cost and availability of a range of goods from pipes and concrete to windows. Even the latest dip in the futures market is just starting to be mirrored at most lumber yards, where prices are still relatively elevated.