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US New Home Sales, Apartment Inventory: March and 1Q 2018
According to the US Census Bureau and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development last week, sales of new homes in the US rose by +4% over the month of March to reach a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 694,000. Year-to-date, covering 1Q 2018, the total number of new homes sold is +10.3% ahead of…
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Great Canadian Rail Fiasco 2017 – July ’18
Monumentally-frustrated North American forest operators were astonished last week to receive word from a major Canadian railroad that the egregious logistics and supply chain problems of last winter will not be unwound until July. Those Canadian sawmill facilities which are at the mercy of one or the other of the two Canadian rail operators have…
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North American Railway Difficulties
Yet another transportation issue bombshell hit the North American forest industry last week in the form of a potential looming labour disruption in Canada. Wednesday reported the Manitoba Co-operator that members of the Teamsters and IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) unions were set to strike CP Rail April 21, but postponed it until union…
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US Construction Materials Prices: March 2018
Building materials prices in the US continued to climb in March, according to the latest Producer Price Index release by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics Tuesday. OSB-led price increases, up +9.3% since February, while the indexes for ready-mix concrete (+3.3%), softwood lumber (+2.2%), structural steel (+2.0%), and gypsum products (+1.1%) also moved higher. US Construction Materials…
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US Residential Construction Spending: Feb 2018
NAHB analysis of Census Construction Spending data, released Monday, shows that total private residential construction spending in the US stood at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of US$533 billion in February, a gain of 0.1% from the upwardly revised estimate of January. Over the past 12 months, total private residential construction spending was up 5.5%.…
