-May 26,2020-
A news report in the Wall Street Journal after Memorial Day says lumber prices have rebounded as hopes to salvage the spring/summer building season are up. Indeed lumber prices have rebounded from a low in April when the stood at $263 per thousand bd/ft. Earlier, in February- before widespread COVID-19 infections hit – lumber futures were $460. Now they have bounced back half-way to $366 today .
But if the Central Valley is any measure of what is happening in the home building industry – the permit pace here has yet return to any kind of normalcy.
Consider new home permit numbers in May 2020 vs May 2019.
Construction Monitor, who keeps track of these things, says builders in Tulare, Kings, Fresno and Madera counties pulled just 55 new home permits this May so far. By contrast, they permitted 422 new homes as of this date in May 2019.
Nationally, confidence in the market for single-family, newly built homes rose 7 points to 37 in May, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index.
Anything above 50 is considered positive, so sentiment remains in negative territory.The index stood at 66 in May 2019 and hit a high of 76 in December.