Home-price growth in the US accelerated in November 2019, in the latest sign the home-sales market is picking up steam after a slow start to 2019. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index rose +3.5% in the 12 months to November, up from a +3.2% annual pace the prior month.National home price gains coincide…

The full Madison’s Lumber Reporter North America softwood lumber price list will be updated as usual first thing Friday morning Eastern time, however here is a SNEAK PEAK at tomorrow’s benchmark WSPF prices: After staying flat for the past four weeks,The wholesaler price of benchmark softwood lumber item Western Spruce-Pine-Fir KD 2×4 #2&Btr for Jan…

This month was held the annual British Columbia Truck Loggers Association AGM in Vancouver, BC, where the Premier of BC, John Horgan, announced $5 million in funding to assist contractors at risk of losing equipment to the banks. The move is in response to this record-breaking seven month strike, and is intended to pay existing…

prices for commercial/residential heating wood pellets in the US are quite a bit higher than in Canada (when converting USD to CAD) UNITED STATES Commercial/Residential Heating Wood Pellet Prices as well, the relationship between US retail and wholesale heating wood pellet prices is far more correlated than in Canada there is a peak in US…

While benchmark construction framing softwood lumber commodity Western Spruce-Pine-Fir 2×4 held firm last week, prices of a lot of other dimension lumber items did pop up somewhat. The lumber supply-demand balance across North America is currently quite good, if not a little in favour of producers. Harsh weather in several regions, especially in Canada, over…

New home building in the United States skyrocketted, by almost 17%, last month however this is after an almost equally sharp drop in November. Reasonably clement weather in the densely-populated US northeast last week allowed for quite robust construction activity, providing softwood lumber sellers the opportunity to hold prices mostly flat. Sudden winterly weather hit…

As expected by most softwood lumber players at the end of last year, the generally buoyant demand for construction framing dimension lumber products at the end of 2019 carried through to somewhat strengthening prices in the first week back to work for sawmills across Canada and the US in 2020. The latest round of sawmill…

While Canada has diversified it’s softwood lumber export destinations since the US housing market downturn of 2008 to …. well, in a way still ongoing, the US remains solid customer of 60% of Canada’s softwood lumber production by volume. Macroeconomic conditions in the US have changed drastically in the past decade; not just the Millennial…

“The main issue is — the price of homes in the US remains too high and the lack of good affordable housing,” said Don Magruder, CEO of RoMac Building Supply, in Daily Commercial online at the end of 2019. For the most part, this account is a good description of the US housing market. Affordable…

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…

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…

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 –…