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US Housing Starts Boom: August 2019
Single family starts were up +3.4% year-over-year, and multi-family starts were up +13.7% YoY. Much of the strength for August starts data was in the volatile multi-family sector, still – overall – this was a strong report. In what more than a few analysts are calling “the peak before the crash”, total housing starts…
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Lumber Prices Recover Slightly as Autumn Arrives
Sawmillers and loggers alike breathed a sigh of relief last week as North American construction framing dimension softwood lumber prices stopped falling, with several key items recovering from recent lows. Production curtailments over the 2019 building season did well to keep lumber supply tight enough for sawmills last week to push their order files into…
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US Single-Family Building Permits: July 2019
Over the first seven months of 2019, the total number of single-family permits issued in the US year-to-date nationwide reached 496,726. On a year-over-year basis, this is a -4.7% decline over the July 2018 level of 521,438. Year-to-date to July 2019, single-family permits reported declines in all four regions, said the US National Association of Home…
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Economist Analysis of Current Lumber Market
Below are some cogent thoughts on the current lumber market today, from an economist at Seeking Alpha:https://seekingalpha.com/article/4291207-lumber-sits-waits-wood-follows-price-futures “Lumber is just below its midpoint for 2019“, Seeking Alpha. So far in 2019, the price of nearby lumber futures has traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in a range from US$286.10 to US$453.90 per 1,000 board feet.…
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US Building Materials Prices: August 2019
Prices paid for goods used in residential construction in the US decreased by 0.8% in August (not seasonally adjusted) according to the latest Producer Price Index (PPI) released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said the National Association of Home Builders Eye on Housing Tuesday. Building materials prices in the US have declined an average of 0.1%…
