• Lumber prices have plummeted 30% over the past two weeks as the housing market cools down.
• A surge in mortgage rates contributed to a decline in pending home sales last month, according to the National Association of Realtors.
• Lumber is still facing supply chain disruptions after storms knocked out crucial railways in British Columbia late last year.

Lumber prices have crashed 30% over the past two weeks as rising mortgage rates help cool down the US housing market.

Lumber traded limit down multiple times last week, and was down about 5% on Tuesday. The essential building material hit a high of $1,338 per thousand board feet on January 14 before trading to a low of $934 on Tuesday.

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate has been surging recently and jumped 50 basis points to 3.55% in late January ahead of anticipated interest rate hikes from the
Federal Reserve later this year.

And even before January’s spike, the housing market was already feeling the effects of rising mortgage rates. US pending home sales fell 3.8% month-over-month in December, and were down 6.9% year-over-year, according to the National Association of Realtors…read more.