Logging in to address the Lumber Shortage

Unless you’re living under a rock (or a log), you’ve probably heard that lumber prices have skyrocketed during the last year. Since December alone, lumber prices have risen by 34.3% (NMHC).

The shortages in materials will continue to cause project delays and cost increases in the multifamily sector just as quickly as the price inflations are causing continuous disturbances in the construction industry.

Builders and contractors only have so many options for offsetting the issue, namely, cut costs via materials or raise rents to levels that may not be competitive.  How will you rise to the challenge? From Ice Breaker’s extensive current search portfolio with developer-builders, we are finding there’s widespread pencil-sharpening to find the mathematical intersection of cost and revenue curves. 

However, we have also found that there’s a great deal of talent-based innovation afoot through the hire of strategic sourcing/procurement executives, highest volume builders, and hiring supply-chain managers.  Noting that the multifamily industry does not employ such professionals on a widespread basis, we’ve found that some clients have looked (obviously) to single-family homebuilding and even large-scale commodity manufacturing itself.

How are you handling the lumber shortage within your own organization? We’d be curious to learn more and have a conversation on how to combat this problem. Conversely, if you’re looking for innovative talent who can handle the unexpected and come up with alternative solutions, we can identify talent as strong as a lumberjack. Let’s talk.