By David Fleet
Editor
Goodrich- New homes on the way. On Monday night the village council voted 4-0 to approve the site plan for the sixth phase of Green Ridge Meadows. Council member Sherry Moore was absent. The village planning commission recommended approval following the May 24 meeting.
The developer, Atlas Township-based Johnson & Sons Excavating will provide the space for 25 new  homes on about 16 acres, with the average lot size of about 22,000 square feet. The project will connect to Green Ridge Estate phase 4 and include a connection to Green Road. The new development will provide some much needed homes in a post-pandemic market.
According to reports from Realcomp released earlier this year for the 48462 area code, which includes sections of Atlas, Brandon and Groveland townships within The Citizen’s readership area, the historically low inventory of existing homes is creating a highly-competitive seller’s market. Part of the new home equation are the now fluctuating costs of home building materials.
According to news sources, on Tuesday lumber futures fell as low as $944 per thousand board feet. A recovery helped the commodity avoid its 10th straight down day. Experts predict lumber’s price will remain elevated from historic norms. Lumber prices slide mounting a recovery as the pandemic-driven boom in the commodity continues to show signs of weakness.Specifically, lumber futures fell as low as $944 per thousand board feet before recovering above $1,000.
Lumber’s recent rise has been so dramatic that prices are up roughly 170 percent since this time last year even with the recent downturn. Michael Stoskopf, CEO of the Home Builders Association of Southeastern Michigan, represents more than 1,500 building related trades in Oakland, Wayne, Macomb and St. Clair counties.
“The estimate is that lumber price increases have added $18,000 to $36,000 more to the cost of a new home,” said Stoskopf during an interview with The Citizen last week. “The prices coming down can do nothing but have a positive impact on home building.”

The number of building permits has declined about 15 to 20 percent fewer homes built, he added.
“However, it takes four to eight weeks for the decline in prices to work through the system,” he said.
“A lot also depends on the turnover of existing inventory to impact the supply stream. In addition, while the cost of lumber has been cut in half from the record high it’s still three times higher than pre COVID. For the past decade the cost of lumber was about $300 per thousand board feet.”
Stoskopf said that in southeast Michigan for every $1,000 increase in new home prices, 2,300 households are priced out of the market.
The building trade was impacted last year when construction of homes was halted by executive order due to the pandemic.
“When construction was allowed to resume in May 2020 many homeowners realized they wanted to remodel, add on or just build a new home,” he said. “We saw a dramatic increase for the months June through December (2020) there were more new homes built in those months than the same time in 2019.”