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.…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

In keeping with unusually high softwood lumber prices for the season and a seemingly-unstoppable US real estate market, the latest US construction spending data provides further insight. Total Construction: Total US construction spending during September 2020 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of US$1,414 billion, basically flat compared to the revised August estimate…

North American construction framing dimension softwood lumber prices did correct down a bit more last week, however demand remained quite strong for the time of year while supply was still quite constrained. Customers called around to sawmills and secondary suppliers, at wholesalers and reloads, in search of the wood they needed for ongoing projects. Producers…

The US unemployment rate made another sizeable drop, falling to 6.9% from 7.9% in September. US nonfarm payrolls rose by +638,000 in October compared to September, slightly ahead of market expectations, reported the US Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday. The stronger than expected job growth came as notable job gains in leisure and hospitality, professional…

Here is a SNEAK PEAK at tomorrow’s print for North American construction framing softwood lumber prices: “There were some underpinnings of demand as prices dropped the past couple of weeks. Inventories have been stretched so much with little in the supply pipeline that at some point the market would get support.” — Madison’s Lumber Reporter…

Canada Domestic Log Prices Follow Wholesale Lumber Prices Up By Significant Amounts in September 2020 After dropping a little bit in August due to a plummet in multi-family home building, privately-owned US housing starts in September were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,415,000, the US Commerce Department said Tuesday. This is +2% above…