After a year of record-high numbers, lumber prices are finally coming down. However, the effects of that decline could take weeks to reach the retail shelves, and prices won't fall enough to reach pre-pandemic rates.

"People should know that prices are probably not going to fall to the levels that they were before the pandemic," Dustin Jalbert, an analyst with Fastmarkets, told NPR.

The pandemic had a compound effect when it came to raising the price of lumber. First, the virus itself as well as the widespread lockdowns meant to slow the spread of it inadvertently slowed the entire economy, and that includes the lumber market.

Sawmills already struggling due to the virus's direct effects also had to respond to a boom in demand caused by the pandemic. Hobbyists and DIY-ers stuck indoors started buying more wood for their crafts. Half-finished renovation projects were suddenly being completed en masse by people spending a lot more time in their homes.

To top it off, the pandemic coincided with a high level of demand for new homes. Some of those home building projects have been in limbo due to the outrageously high price of the wood needed to complete them, Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders, told NPR. At its peak, the price of a new home hit $35,872, according to the National Association of Homebuilders.

Inevitably, the combination of stifled supply and surging demand led to skyrocketing lumber prices.

In March of 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, futures prices for lumber were at a relatively reasonable $303.40 per thousand board feet. By this May, that number had reached $1,607.50, an increase of more than 400%. Meanwhile, a real-time index of lumber prices, the Framing Lumber Composite Price, had reached $1,514 per thousand board feet.

Thankfully, the pandemic seems to be coming to end, and with that comes a return to the sawmill for lumber workers, and thus an uptick in lumber supply.

In mid-June, the Framing Composite Price fell to $1,113, $211 lower than the week before it. Over the weekend of the 20th, futures prices for lumber fell to $904.90.

Keep in mind that, while the fall in prices is almost guaranteed to reach the retail shelves, it's likely to be weeks before that happens.

While the drop in prices is undoubtedly welcome amongst builders and hobbyists alike, they're still a far cry from $300. That $300 price tag might be a fantasy, but there are some reasons to think that prices aren't done falling.

Now that many of us have stopped working from home and gone back to the office, all of the other tack-on effects of the pandemic are also receding.

"If you're spending less time at home, you're probably spending less money on the home," Jalbert told NPR. "That remodeling, renovation, DIY boom - whatever you want to call it - that's also softening."

If lumber prices continue to fall, however, those projects put on hold due to the prohibitively high price of wood are likely to be picked back up again.

"If it's the case that the price is coming down because it does represent a true uptick in the amount of supply, we're going to see some of those projects move forward," Dietz said.

While the increase in demand for those construction projects might stagnate the rate at which lumber prices fall temporarily, colder weather at the end of the year is expected to help drive down the price.

However, even with the weather putting a damper on construction, prices won't be getting anywhere near where they were last May.