Category: Lumber News

  • Softwood Lumber and US Housing Market: 2020

    The start of a new year, not to mention new decade, always heralds annual wrap-ups and predictions for the coming year. The end of last year did bring some clarity to several economics questions that had proved murky since mid-2018. For their part, construction framing softwood lumber prices ended 2019 generally even compared to the…

  • North America Softwood Lumber Production, Sawmill Capacity Utilization, WWPA: Oct 2019

    Once again flat, as the previous two months, the latest issue of the Western Wood Products Association’s monthly Lumber Track, for January-October 2019, shows US softwood lumber production volume still basically flat from from the same time last year, to 29,909 mmfbm. Also like last month, January – October softwood lumber production in Canada continued…

  • Global Softwood Lumber Trade Complications

    The biggest issue by far for Canada’s forest products industry as 2019 comes to a close is: complications to global trade.There are two major unknowns right now; one in each of the political arenas Canada uses to battle the never-ending disputes with the United States over softwood lumber duties. At the World Trade Organization, where…

  • US Housing Starts vs Softwood Lumber Prices: 3Q 2019

    Housing starts in the US grew +3.2% in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.365 million and the pace for October was revised upward, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Commerce December 17. Median US House Sales Price vs Benchmark North American Construction Framing Dimension Softwood Lumber Prices: 2016 –…

  • US House Prices vs. Softwood Lumber Prices: Dec 2019

    Median US House Sales Price vs Benchmark North American Construction Framing Dimension Softwood Lumber Prices: 3Q 2019 US house prices rose in 3Q 2019, up +1.1 per cent according to the US Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI), released November 26. House prices in the US rose +4.9 per cent from 3Q…