Tag: US housing starts

  • Softwood Lumber Prices Are Elevated and Might Just Correct Downward

    Transportation problems continued to plague softwood lumber suppliers and customers, providing opportunity for producers to keep prices up as they could legitimately not say when wood ordered two weeks ago would get delivered. In this new reality of the forest industry, it is becoming apparent that demand for uses beyond only US home building is…

  • US Household Formations, Home Prices: 4Q 2017

    The US homeownership rate stands at 64.2% in 4Q 2017, up from 63.7% a year ago and 63.9% in 3Q according to the Census Bureau’s Housing Vacancy Survey, released January 30. US Household Formations, Home Prices: 4Q 2017 After dropping to a cycle low of 62.9% in 2Q 2016, the national homeownership rate seems to…

  • Confusion and Volatility Did Little to Stymie Softwood Lumber Demand: Feb 14, 2018

    Last week has started to come out actual data of timber supply loss due to wildfires in northwest North America, and it’s really bad. Details to come. Otherwise, lumber demand continued strong even as customers digested the rush of wood ordered three weeks ago. As extreme transportation woes continued unabated, sawmills took to quoting on…

  • North America’s Forest Products Industry, A Look Forward: 2018

    The US National Association of Home Builders has released full-year 2017 data for US single- and multi-family home building, and remodelling. The numbers are shaping up to show a very glowing picture indeed, of the next two years likely, for the main customers of US and Canadian solid wood construction framing dimension lumber products. NAHB…

  • Single Family Homes Are 1/3 of US Rentals

    The 2016 American Community Survey shows that renters occupied 43.8 million residences in 2016, explained the US National Association of Home Builders Tuesday. Of these rental homes, 34.8 per cent are one-unit single-family homes, 17.7 per cent are 2-4 unit structures. Therefore, more than half of all renters, approximately 53 per cent, lived in buildings…