The cost of lumber has increased 300% over the past 12 months, according to National Home Builder Association statistics. The reason is simple economics -- increased demand and limited supply. When the pandemic first began, home construction came to a standstill and a lot of sawmills and lumber processing facilities shut down. Then, the boom in remodeling and home building started early last summer and the mills went from having too much wood to not enough very quickly.
The demand has shown no sign of ebbing and trees take time to grow, so the supply side will keep lumber costs high for a while. Another reason why lumber supplies are down is that mills can't keep up with processing the wood that is being felled. On top of that, the rise in lumber costs may likely rise because the U.S. Commerce Department last week said it would like to increase tariffs on Canadian lumber from 9% to 18.32%.
This provides a great opportunity for investors to get in on what is likely to be growth trend for a while. Even better, these three timber real estate investment trusts (REITs), CatchMark Timber Trust (NYSE: CTT) , Rayonier (NYSE: RYN) and PotlatchDeltic (NASDAQ: PCH) all offer a dividend yield of at least 2.7%.
For further details see:
Get Paid While You Wait: 3 Top Dividend Stocks in Lumber