Home price gains in the US are about to take off again, said Corelogic Tuesday. The real estate data and analytics company predicts that annual gains in home prices could hit close to +5% by 2020, thanks to falling interest rates. CoreLogic® Tuesday released the CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI™) and HPI Forecast™ for February…

Continued soft demand and unenthusiastic customers had North America construction framing softwood lumber prices lower last week, as operators can only wait and see if the usual spring lumber selling will materialize. Monday’s data release of improved US construction spending for February and recent data of strong US home sales and house prices has most…

US construction spending increased for a third straight month in February, boosted by gains in both private and public construction projects. Construction spending during February 2019, released Monday by the US Census Bureau, was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of US$1,320 billion, +1% above the revised January estimate of US$1,307 billion and a…

Contracts for new, single-family home sales in the US increased almost +5% to a 667,000 seasonally adjusted annual rate according to estimates from the joint release of HUD and the US Census Bureau Friday. This gain came despite an upward revision for the January data. However, the previously reported December data was revised down significantly…

The US Pending Home Sales Index, reported Thursday by the National Association of Realtors, is a forward-looking indicator based on signed contracts. The PHSI declined -1% from 102.9 in January to 101.9 in February, and was -4.9% below the level one year ago, marking the fourteenth straight month of declines on an annualized basis. Be…

The Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index, reported by S&P Dow Jones Indices Tuesday, rose at a seasonally adjusted annual growth rate of +2.8% in January 2019, after rising +2.5% in December. On a year-over-year basis, the Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index rose by +4.3% in January, down from a +4.6% increase in December.…

Total US housing starts posted an -8.7% decrease in February, to 1.162 million units, compared to an upwardly revised January estimate of 1.273 million units, according to the joint data release Tuesday from the US Census Bureau and HUD. Relative to February 2018, total starts are -9.9% below the annual pace of 1.29 million units.The…

Most lumber talk was about the fabulous Montreal Wood Convention last week, a great event which draws sawmill industry folks together every year. Players there reported well-stocked inventories but a lag in production because deliveries to many parts of the US were stymied. Severe flooding has taken over large swaths of the midwest and the…

Writes the US National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Friday, typically, one of the best-kept secrets in a private company is the share of total revenue that stays in the company after paying all operating costs and expenses – also known as net profit margin. NAHB periodically conducts the Builders’ Cost of Doing Business Study…

Important data for North America softwood lumber manufacturers is out Friday; US existing home sales for February 2019. After three consecutive months of decline, existing home sales in the US, released by the National Association of Realtors, rebounded strongly in February. This is the largest monthly gain since December 2015. Total existing home sales in…

Building material prices topped the list of problems builders in the United States faced in 2018, but cost and availability of labour is expected to return to the number one spot in 2019, according to special questions on the January survey for the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. The survey results, released Monday, showed that material…

As delayed data releases out of the US catch up to usual schedule, recent indications out of China show a sizeable drop in log and lumber imports for full-year 2018. Traders report zero ordering and the ports have been choked with wood — some unsold — for at least a month. Next week the latest…

The number of single-family homes built-for-rent in the US increased over the course of 2018, as construction starts of this type of housing totaled 43,000 homes, compared to 37,000 for 2017. There were 10,000 single-family built-for-rent starts for 4Q 2018. According to data from the Census Bureau’s Quarterly Starts and Completions by Purpose and Design…

The latest issue of the Western Wood Products Association’s monthly Lumber Track, for full-year 2018, shows a +3.3% increase in US softwood lumber production volume, while that in Canada dropped by a similar ratio.US softwood lumber production in 2018 ended strong compared to the previous year, jumping by +3.3%, totalling 34,873 million board feet (MMBF)…

Video showing the data and functionality of the *new* Madison’s Lumber Price Reporter online dashboard tool: North America construction framing softwood lumber: 387 of the highest-volume, most commonly-traded, wood building materials wholesaler prices (net FOB sawmill) updated every Friday morning since 1952. Madison’s Lumber Price Reporter online dashboard tool: Quickstart User Guide: Madison’s Lumber Reporter…