美国有线新闻 CNN 美国木材价格频创新高 为房价推波助澜（在线收听）

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck? Home builders and new home buyers probably don't care. They just wish the animal would chuck more of it. There's a national shortage of lumber in the U.S. and it's selling at its highest rate since 2006. Why?

一只土拨鼠会扔掉多少木材？房屋建设者和新购房者可能并不在意。他们只是希望土拨鼠能多扔一些。美国正面临全国性的木材短缺，而且目前木材的销售速度达到2006年以来的最高水平。原因为何？

The American business magazine Fortune says it's supply and demand. Last year, lumber producers were temporarily shut down because of coronavirus concerns. At the same time, people working from home decided to buy more wood for projects around the house. So lumber started disappearing from stores like Home Depot.

美国商业杂志《财富》表示，这是供求关系。去年，由于担心冠状病毒，木材生产商暂时停产。同时，在家工作者决定多买些木材，用于房屋周围的工程。因此，木材开始从家得宝这样的商店消失。

Another factor, interest rates for home loans started hitting record lows last year, so people flooded the housing market because their dollar went further. All of this resulted in very short supplies of wood while there was tremendous demand for it. So lumber prices went through the roof hitting record highs.

另一个因素是，去年房屋贷款利率开始创下历史新低，因此人们纷纷涌入房地产市场，因为他们手中的美元会“走得更远”。所有这些因素都导致木材供应严重短缺，而对木材的需求量却巨大。因此木材价格飙升，创下历史新高。

That drove up the cost of building houses. It drove up the cost of buying new houses. So when will this end? Nobody knows. Some experts say prices will start to settle this summer, others say we'll be in 2022 before lumber prices come back down.

这不仅导致建造房屋的成本增加。还抬高了购买新房的成本。这种情况何时能结束？没人知道。一些专家表示，木材价格将在今年夏天稳定下来，木材价格要到2022年才开始回落。