well... get a cup of coffee and try to keep up lol
politics hooped us around here, the export market is all but gone, this is a direct result of former pres trumps trade war with china, over the summer prices nearly hit the lowest I've seen since I started logging. Several mills closed outright. One mill had had a fire and was temporarily shut down anyway, Covid didn't help them much, they are up and running again but at reduced capacity. Point being that without a strong export market, domestic timber gets flooded so prices are still down some, except cedar, cedar is going bananas. As it is, prices are still low, with the demand being what it is we can easily keep the mills slam full until the export market opens up again, which frankly isn't likely anytime soon as China is now buying wood from Russia, and Australia. Though there is still a Japan market and Korean market, its not nearly as robust as the china market was. Note: I try to avoid politics here as much as possible, however these are simple facts, If you don't believe me spend a couple hours listening to the local log buyers complain about it.
Most of the mills here are churning out wood as fast as they can, but also, logging and forestry products where considered essential, so we all kept right on working through the shut downs. Which in the end may of bit us a little bit, cause the log yards are full, and its the end of winter...
Several of the very large timber producers the SP's, and Weyco's shut down for a few months, which helped bring log prices back to something more like normal.
Couple of other things to consider, many Canadian mills are or were shut down on account of a general strike, so a lot of the wood they would of cut, has been diverted here, also keeping our log prices low. A lot of building projects were put on hold during the summer months of 2020, because of Covid, partly because permitting was a nightmare with county/city agencies being furloughed, partly because of the general lock downs, so now all them projects are finally starting to catch up, been an awful lot of framing going on in the winter months around here, and I ass-u-me around the country. this puts abnormal strain on the shipping/trucking side of timber markets, lumber yards generally stock up during the summer months, but now they are running low, and trucking in winter is a PITA to begin with, couple that with an overall lack of CDL drivers... well its just simple logistics. And you have all the homeowners, that are finally at home long enough to think about improvement projects and getting around to building that deck and rebuilding the fence, which is really driving the demand hard at the moment. Not to mention all the new projects that would normally start about now anyway, also all the damage from hurricanes, ice storms etc etc etc has been worse then normal over 2020 so folks have to rebuild too.
Last but not least, and likely the main reason for lumber being expensive, too many mills have closed over the years, and simply can not keep up with the current housing boom, they got logs, but they simply don't have the production capacity. Much like ammo, Federal/CCI etc are running 24hrs a day 7 days a week, and its simply not enough to keep up.