Material change

Lumber costs down somewhat, but still high

GRANT COUNTY — It’s the stuff that homes are made of. But lumber, like so many other things, has gotten harder to lay hands on the last few years, and costlier when you can. Unlike other commodities, however, the price of lumber has actually dipped a little in recent months. “They (lumber prices) are still up compared to historically, but they have gone down a little bit,” said Drew Scott, co-owner and manager of CAD Homes in Moses Lake, which currently has several housing developments under construction in the Basin. They have indeed gone down some. Five years ago, in September 2017, lumber futures were trading at $388 per thousand board-feet, according to the website TradingEconomics.com.