CASPER, Wyo — Supply disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic are continuing to affect the price of materials for contractors and builders, according to government data and local contractors.
Dianne Ebert, executive director of the Wyoming Central Wyoming Home Builder’s Association, told Oil City News at the Home and Garden show last weekend that lumber prices are top of mind for vendors and contractors, affecting industries from home and deck builders to window remodelers.
The National Association of Home Builders said spikes in lumber prices have added more than $24,000 to the price of the average, new single-family home. The escalating lumber prices are largely due to insufficient domestic production, NAHB said.
Casper Mayor and realtor Steve Freel told the Natrona County Travel and Tourism Board Tuesday that the sale price of a home currently under construction in Bar Nunn was $11,000 more than a brand new home with the “exact same floor plan” sold two weeks prior.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Commercial Construction Index shows some of these concerns easing. For the first quarter of the year, 22% of contractors said they are experiencing a lumber shortage, down from a spike of 31% from the December 2020 report.
Nevertheless, 71% of contractors are experiencing a materials shortage of some kind. Lumber, steel and copper are the materials of most concern for price fluctuations.
Jim Barankiewicz, president of Tim Force Tin Shop, said “it’s getting harder and harder to get material, especially copper coils,” since the pandemic.
“Our metal has almost doubled,” he said, adding that most of these materials come from overseas.