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May Long Weekend in Canada Does Nothing to Slow Lumber Demand
A lot of regular life activities remain unknown as various jurisdictions “open up” from the Covid19 isolation and quarantine. Regardless, most North American construction framing dimension softwood lumber prices jumped once again last week on both continued healthy demand and uncertainty with supply.Producers of Western Spruce-Pine-Fir commodities in the United States said bread and butter…
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Softwood Lumber Prices May 2020 & US Housing Starts: April 2020
Residential housing starts in the US slumped -30% from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 891,000, the lowest level since 2015, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Data for March was revised up to show homebuilding declining to a pace of 1.276 million units instead of dropping to 1.216 million units as…
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Madison’s Weekly Softwood Lumber Prices: May 19, 2020
Prices updated May 19, 2020 (CLICK TABLE TO ENLARGE) MADISON’S SOFTWOOD LUMBER MARKET WEEKLY COMMENT: Key comment: “Demand in both the West and the East was robust, as order files at sawmills stretched out and most prices advanced further.”
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US Home Improvement & Remodelling Activity: 1Q 2020
A recent report by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies shows US home remodelling punches above its weight in the ratio of it’s contribution to US total GDP, compared to new home building.Over 50% of US housing is now over 40 years old and the average price tag is getting a lot bigger, at:…
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North America Softwood Lumber Production, Sawmill Capacity Utilization, WWPA: February 2020
The latest issue of the Western Wood Products Association’s monthly Lumber Track, for February 2019 – February 2020, shows US lumber production volumes continued previous improvement, this time up by +4.2% over the previous year, to 6,108 mmfbm.February 2019 – February 2020 Canada softwood lumber production has not yet been released by Statistics Canada, but…