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US Housing Market February & Softwood Lumber Prices March: 2023
The latest US housing starts and new home sales data, for February 2023, demonstrates ongoing demand, however at a requisite slowdown from the frantic momentum of the previous two years. In particular single-family homebuilding and permits rebounded in February, indicating that demand for housing still exceeds supply, a reason for optimism about building and selling sooner…
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Lumber Prices Flatten as Winter Ends
By mid-March many regions across the continent faced yet another bought of bad weather. Meanwhile the densely-populated southern US states ramped up construction activity. Demand for lumber materials remained somewhat muted, yet suppliers booked enough sales to keep prices generally even from the previous week. Sawmills claimed to have extended order files out to two…
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Fierce Competition for Sales Drops Lumber Prices Further
With cold winter weather still a serious issue across the continent, secondary suppliers of construction framing dimension softwood lumber competed fiercely for whatever small sales volumes they could muster. As for producers, sawmills held their ground on pricing only to be met with resistance from customers. As such, prices did drop — precipitously back to…
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US Housing Starts and New Home Sales plus Lumber Prices: Jan and Feb 2023
Total housing starts in the US for January 2023 were down a little bit compared to Dec 2022, which is normal for the season. Single-family starts were also down slightly compared to Dec, but permits were almost flat. Full-year 2022 total housing starts were down only -3% compared to 2021, at 1.55 million units. Single-family…
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Ongoing Winter Weather Keeps Lumber Prices Down
As more cold and snow descended yet again across North America, construction activity remained stalled thus lumber sales were similarly slow. Those purchases which were made were generally for just-in-time buying or immediate needs; almost no one was stocking up on inventory yet for this looming spring building season. For their part, sawmills could only…
