Winter weather still grips most of the continent and this is not the time of year when real estate activity in Canada and the US is usually strong, so if the data is showing such a high level of interest now it is only reasonable to assume that — come spring — home buying will…

For full-year 2020, the softwood lumber production volumes and sawmill capacity utilization rates in Canada dropped by a large degree compared to the previous year, while that in the United States remained much more stable. This latest data is very interesting because 2019 was not a great year for US housing starts and home building,…

Now reaching levels never seen before, in the week ending February 26, 2021, the price of benchmark softwood lumber commodity item Western S-P-F KD 2×4 #2&Btr rose another +$28, or +3%, to US$1,040 mfbm, from $1,012 the previous week. Last week’s price is +$42, or +4%, more than one month ago when it was $998.Compared…

For the week ending February 19, 2021 North America construction framing dimension softwood lumber prices surpassed a threshold that industry veterans never imagined, in their wildest dreams, they would ever see, said weekly lumber industry price guide newsletter Madison’s Lumber Reporter. Madison’s Lumber Reporter pegged the wholesaler sales prices of benchmark softwood lumber commodity Western…

New-home purchases account for about 10% of the market and are calculated when contracts are signed. They are considered a timely barometer of the current real estate market. At a very unusual time of year, not when folks normally want to be preparing to move, sales of new single-family houses in the US for January…

According to Madison’s Lumber Reporter, we can expect to see strong lumber prices and demand for up to two years. This is not just because the pandemic sparked a boom in the repair and remodelling market, but also because, in 2020, millennials made up the largest cohort of first-time buyers for the first time.  In…

Drax Group to Acquire Pinnacle Renewable Energy On February 8th, 2020, Pinnacle Renewable Energy Inc. announced that the company has entered into an arrangement agreement with Drax Group plc and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Drax Canadian Holdings Inc. will acquire all issued and outstanding common shares of Pinnacle in an all-cash transaction valued at C$831 million.…

In an effort to make timber prices more responsive to market conditions, the latest changes to BC Timber Sales stumpage rates has that calculation based on recent lumber prices. As these changes start to take hold, the relationship between softwood lumber prices and log prices will become even more apparent. Madison’s Monthly Lumber and Forestry…

If there was ever an incomprehensible year for forestry and sawmilling, it was 2020. Macroeconomic conditions in Canada and the U.S. weren’t any easier to decipher. However, one sector that clearly did well was housing: home building and selling activity across the continent revved up to white-hot levels. Indeed, according to the latest U.S. employment…

Wood pellets and wood chips are the dominant fuels, with preference regionally specific. The September 2017 issue of the Madison’s Heating Wood Pellet price report provided detailed information from a Natural Resources Canada / Torchlight Bioresources study on bioheat projects in Canada. This report was recently updated by Natural Resources Canada, exploring the growth of…

Sharply increased homebuilding activity is being supported by lean inventories, especially for previously owned homes. As true winter weather came on across the continent, total residential starts in the US for January 2021 fell by -6% to a 1.58 million annualized rate. Permits for future homebuilding soared again, this time by +10.4% to a rate…

In the first week of February sawmills were taking orders that would not even go on the production line until the beginning of March. This provides good indication that prices are not going to go down anytime soon. Confusion continued in many quarters as both suppliers and consumers of North America construction framing dimension softwood…

Madison’s Lumber Prices vs Softwood Lumber Production & Sawmill Capacity Utilization Rates Canadian and US softwood lumber production volumes and sawmill capacity utilization rates for October 2020 (provided by the Western Wood Products Association at wwpa.org ) against Madison’s Lumber Reporter‘s dimension softwood lumber prices.

For the week ending Feb 6, total U.S. weekly rail traffic was 495,815 carloads and intermodal units, up +2.2% compared with the same week last year. For the first five weeks of 2021, U.S. railroads reported cumulative volume of 1,156,696 carloads, down -2.2% from the same point last year; and 1,442,642 intermodal units, up +11%…

Zillow CEO Richard Barton on housing market today: ‘Homes are flying off the shelves’ Home prices in urban U.S. markets rose +15% in the three months through late January to US$315,000, slightly ahead of the annual pace in suburbia, according to data from brokerage Redfin Thursday, based on geographic designations developed by the Census Bureau.…