Saskatoon / 650 CKOM
Jan 11, 2021 12:41 PM
A Saskatchewan home builder is predicting some relief from high lumber prices in time for the spring building season.
“(By) late March, early April we expect a drop as much of 30 per cent in the market,” Warman Homes Centre president Rick Casavant told the Brent Loucks Show on Monday.
Prices for oriented strand board (OSB) and dimensional lumber have increased 200 to 300 per cent over the past nine months during the COVID-19 pandemic. Casavant said a sheet of OSB plywood that was $12 a year ago is selling today for $38 in his store.
“There’s lots of time where there’s no lumber to buy. We’ll place an order and we used to wait two days. Now we’re waiting six to eight weeks,” he said.