October 2020 US new home sales numbers are +42% higher year-over-year while the September revision indicates two consecutive months of more than 1 million sales, a feat not reached since 2006. US new home sales in October dipped -0.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 999,000 units last month, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. September’s sales pace was revised higher to 1.002 million units from the previously reported 959,000 units. The all time high for October was 105 thousand…

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US Commerce Dept Preliminary Ruling Significantly Lowers Canada’s Softwood Lumber Duty On February 3, 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce released its preliminary determination for the First Administrative Review (AR1) in antidumping duty (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) investigations of imports of certain softwood lumber products from Canada. The final determination by the US Commerce Dept on Canada’s softwood lumber duty rate was supposed be in August but was delayed until November. At that time duty rates could be lowered…

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The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller US National Home Price NSA Index reported Tuesday a +7% annual gain in September 2020, up from +5.8% in August. Adding to pressure on home prices is the ever shrinking supply of homes for sale, already at a record low. Inventory fell to a 2.5-month supply at the end of October, according to the National Association of Realtors. While single-family home construction is rising slowly, it is not even close to meeting the demand, especially in…

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Just unbelievable for this time of year and if someone had predicted it a month ago they would have been met with derisive laughter, but lumber prices were actually up last week as demand increased. This is absolutely unprecedented for the week before US Thanksgiving and sawmills simply do not have enough wood in their yards to sell to ravenous customers.As one large-scale lumber trader put it at the beginning of this week, “Customers who were reluctant to book orders…

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US house prices rise by the most since 1991 as US mortgage lenders record their biggest quarter in two decades To see the latest data on softwood lumber prices and US housing starts please go here. The median price for previously owned homes has hit a new record at US$313,000, up +16% from a year ago, the US National Association of Realtors said Thursday. There are fewer homes for sale in the US today than ever recorded in data going back nearly…

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US Housing Total Starts October 2020 & Benchmark Softwood Lumber Prices November 2020 New home building in the US surged up by +5% to an annual rate of 1.530 million in October 2020 after soaring by +6.3% to an upwardly revised rate of 1.459 million in September. As in previous months, the increase was driven by single-family starts, which rose by +6.4% to 1.18 million. Compared to the same month a year ago, US housing starts in October 2020 were…

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The latest housing starts report by the US Commerce Department, released Wednesday, said new home building in the US surged up by +5% to an annual rate of 1.530 million in October 2020 after soaring by +6.3% to an upwardly revised rate of 1.459 million in September. US housing starts continue to defy expectations in October 2020 As in previous months, the increase was driven by single-family starts, which rose by +6.4% to 1.18 million. By contrast, starts in the…

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The trend in Canadian housing starts was 222,734 units in October 2020, up from 214,372 units in September 2020, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) Tuesday. This trend measure is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR) of housing starts. Canadian housing starts rose +3% in October compared with the previous month as an increase in detached urban starts outweighed a small decrease in multiple urban starts. Single-detached urban starts were up +14% to 57,788…

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As market conditions stabilized, some North American construction framing dimension softwood lumber prices fell further, others were flat, and still others actually rose somewhat. After a few weeks of seeming free-fall, most lumber prices stabilized last week as the supply-demand balance corrected nicely. Suppliers in Canada and the US saw more orders coming in as end-users continued to run on extremely weak inventories. Buyer reluctance in the past few weeks, while prices were falling and production remained high, evaporated. Customers…

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Every metro area in the United States tracked by the US National Association of Realtors® during 3Q 2020 saw home prices increase from a year ago, according to NAR’s latest quarterly report, released Thursday. Single-family existing home prices rose in all measured metro areas in 3Q 2020. 65% of metro areas had double-digit price gains. The monthly mortgage payment on a typical single-family home rose to US$1,059 and the family income needed to afford a home rose to US$50,819. The proportion…

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