-
Madison’s BC Coast Log Prices: November 2020
A large proportion of lumber produced in Canada goes into US home building. Like lumber prices, housing construction in the US underwent a significant stall in spring 2020. And, like lumber prices, it is recovering steadily from severe lows. It’s very interesting to watch the trend of log prices as a result of this latest…
-
Softwood Lumber Prices Keep Climbing as Industry Looks to 2021
At a time of year when housing construction across North America is usually slowing down to very limited activity, thus softwood lumber prices are usually quite soft, in the past couple of weeks there has been a resurgence of strong demand for solid wood products. Prices of dimension lumber commodities have responded upward accordingly. Underpinning…
-
US Construction Employment: Nov 2020
US construction employment gained +27,000 jobs in November to a total of 7.4 million, but employment is -279,000 below its February level, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Residential construction employment, specifically, rose by +15,400 in November to 2.9 million. In November, employment rose in residential specialty trade contractors by +14,100. In the past…
-
US Construction Spending: Oct and 3Q 2020
The total value of US construction put in place in October rose +1.3% from September, and +3.7% from October 2019, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of US$1.439 trillion, according to US Census Bureau data released Tuesday. US residential construction spending in 3Q 2020 is the highest since the previous residential boom in 2005-2006. Spending…
-
Madison’s Softwood Lumber Prices Dec 4: sneak preview
Here is a SNEAK PEAK at tomorrow’s print for North American construction framing softwood lumber and panel prices: “Robust demand persisted, sending sawmill order files well toward the end of December.” — Madison’s Lumber Reporter In September 2015, the “recent-low” of lumber prices, benchmark commodity Western Spruce-Pine-Fir KD 2x4s were selling for US$249 mfbm. The…
