1. Lumber futures are about 14% below last year
Lumber futures closed at $526.50 per thousand board feet on October 2, against $615.50 a year earlier — 14.5% lower, by Hashtag Investing's summary of the exchange data published October 6. Trading Economics showed about $519 on October 7: down roughly 9% in a month and 13.7% in a year. Both give the same reason: with mortgages above 7%, fewer houses are being started, so less wood is being bought. This is despite duties on Canadian lumber of about 45% combined for the affected mills.
A caution, so this is not read wrongly. A futures price is what mills and traders pay for framing lumber in bulk; your lumberyard follows it late and not all the way. And it does not cancel what we reported on October 3: remodelers' input costs as a whole were 6.6% above last year. Wood is one line that went down while most others went up.
Why it matters: on a deck, a fence, framing or an addition, wood is a large part of the materials. An allowance copied from an estimate you wrote in the spring may now be too high — and a competitor who asked for a fresh quote will be under you.
- Before you price any wood-heavy job this week, get a new quote from your yard for the actual list. Do not reuse last season's number.
- Keep the validity of that estimate short. A price that fell 9% in a month can go back up just as fast.
2. The Fed raised its rate, and mortgage applications fell
This is an update to the October 3 note, with the cause. NAHB wrote on October 6 that the Federal Reserve raised its rate by a quarter point in September, to a range of 3.75%–4.00%, and that the 10-year Treasury yield went above 5% toward the end of the month. The 30-year mortgage averaged 6.86% in September and ended the month at 7.03%; the 15-year averaged 6.20%.
On October 7 NAHB added the Mortgage Bankers Association figures for September: all mortgage applications down 7.7% from August and 35.4% below a year earlier; refinancing down 16.5% in the month.
Why it matters: refinancing and home-equity money are how many large remodels get paid for. When fewer people refinance, fewer people have that cash ready, and the question "how will you pay for this?" decides more jobs.
- Ask how the customer plans to pay at the first visit, not after the estimate is sent.
- For a customer who hesitates at the total, offer the work in two stages with two prices.
Where WorkTime CRM helps with this
Only where it does the thing itself:
- How long a price holds: every estimate can carry "price valid for N days" (30 by default, you can set it shorter). The customer sees a countdown next to the total on the signing page, and the email and the PDF print the date.
- Fresh prices: the pricebook has "Rebuild prices for my market" for your trade, city and state. It is a market reading, not your yard's quote — for wood, the yard's number is the one to trust.