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US Home Sales Feb and Softwood Lumber Prices March: 2021
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. Sales of new single-family houses in the US for February 2021 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 775,000, according to estimates released jointly by the…
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Canadian Softwood Plywood 9.5mm (3/8″) Toronto and OSB 7/16″ Ontario Prices: 2018 to 2021
As often mentioned by Madison’s, panel prices — especially Plywood but also OSB — tend to lead movement in construction framing dimension softwood lumber prices. The graph below illustrates the sharp increase in panel prices through 2020 and in 2021 so far: In the week ending March 19, 2021, the price of Canadian Softwood Plywood…
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Panel Prices Increase Somewhat, Lumber Flat
Potentially signalling a plateau in lumber prices, at least for the time being, benchmark softwood lumber commodity items stayed flat again last week while plywood prices lost almost all the gains of the previous week. However, supply remained incredibly tight as customers still had to search around for the specific items they wanted at prices…
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US Housing Starts February & Softwood Lumber Prices March: 2021
Most of North America remained in the grip of truly harsh winter weather last month, so it’s no surprise that February housing starts in the US continued drops seen in January. Compared to February 2020 total residential starts in the US last month fell by -9.3% to a 1.42 million annualized rate, from 1.57 in…
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Benchmark Softwood Lumber Prices Flat as Demand Flows to Alternate Commodities
Prices of benchmark softwood lumber items, like standard grade #2&Btr R/L stayed mostly flat for the week of March 5 — particularly on the west side — as customer demand flowed into other items. FOR THE WEEK ENDING MARCH 5 there was quite a pop in #3/Utility grade and #4/Economy prices across all species and…
