Not really, the builder made more money because they took on more risk: they bought land speculatively, they took on a massive loan, built a house on speculation that someone will want it. Lumber took on much less risk to chop a few trees and sell a commodity that has a defined market value. Better analogy is the lumber who took on debt and grew into a massive organization that buys land, processes trees into lumber and sells wholesale. This is more of what a home builder is and there are plenty of very large, rich timber companies.