The Valley’s housing market continues to boom, and home prices continue to rise. But a key component of new houses is increasingly expensive and difficult to come by.
A new analysis from the National Association of Home Builders finds the increase in the price of lumber over the past year has added nearly $36,000 to the price of a new house.
The U.S. produces about 70% of the softwood lumber it needs, with the rest mainly coming from Canada.
But tariffs placed on those imports have led to higher prices and lower supply in this country.
The Show spoke about this with Zaib Shaikh, Canada’s consul general to southern California, Arizona and Nevada. Since we’ve been hearing about slowed production for American lumber during the pandemic, the conversation started by discussing the status of Canadian lumber production.
