If you're planning to use lumber soon...

[tiger88 934]

you'd better buy it quickly if what I heard is true.

Heard that after the new year the price of lumber will skyrocket and it will be hard to find much at all. They will begin rebuilding New Orleans and other areas and FEMA is gonna buy out enormous and unheard of amounts of lumber.

[Ranger12 46]

Rumors, I promise you that. See, this is how it works. If the price of lumber was going to skyrocket, it would do it now, not after the first of the year. Why would it wait until after the first of the year? FEMA has already purchased alot of lumber and will be purchasing more, but it will not create a shortage. Lumber production was already up because of the building boom for the last couple of years. Now that sales have slowed down, their are actually lumber surpluses with alot of the businesses. The gas prices affected lumber prices more then anything else did.

It is not like FEMA is planning on buying all the lumber they need at once. Rumors like this are started because somebody in the lumber business wants to become rich off a catastrophe. If people are scared about a shortage of lumber, they then will go buy as much as they can. Then that might create a shortage and the price will go up then. Thus, the reason for somebody in the industry starting the rumor. The "leak" something to a member of the press or some other way and that is how it all starts. Like I said, the lumber needed for rebuilding has already been ordered and purchased. They will need more lumber, but there is not going to be a lumber shortage like the temporary gas shortage we had. Remember those long lines for gas because everybody was afraid we were going to run out of gas because of the hurricanes? Well, some places did run out of gas, but it was because of the run on gas and the stations were not able to replenish quick enough. If everbody would have went about their normal "refueling routines", those places probably would not have ran out of gas. There was a shortage for premium unleaded gas, but that was about it.

Don't let yourself be apart of the hysteria that can actually cause the predicted problem. We haven't cut down all the trees yet, so there will be no lumber shortage.

[tiger88 934]

Well, I don't need any lumber so I won't be part of the hysteria. (Other than helping to spread it, lol.)

You may be right but it seemed plausible to me. Plywood and lumber makers in that area have have their production cut by half or more. Like you said the housing market has been booming. Now they are about to have to rebuild New Orleans and the gulf areas affected by katrina and they can't even make half of their normal production (which doesn't include the extreme rising demand in the area). Seems like there could be a lumber shortage at least to some degree and if there is who do you think is gonna get first dibs? I'll bet it's FEMA and everyone else will be left to deal for whats left.

Unless the lumber companies can produce lumber and plywood at will it stands to reason that the price is about to go up some. If so, how much?