Softwood lumber prices climbed again in North America. While clarity was elusive about lumber sales, and particularly prices, one thing was crystal clear: housing construction activity and demand in Canada and the US ended 2020 extremely strong. To have such a large number of home sales and rising house prices during the traditionally soft months of each year, bodes well for a continued very hot real estate and construction activity through 2021.
US home sales and house price data for full-year 2020 shows a big jump over the previous year. Housing demand is not expected to abate for all of 2021, according to the Madison’s Lumber Reporter.
Sales of Western S-P-F in the US rebounded last week as sawmills boosted their asking prices and customers scrambled to get their hands on any stick of wood they could find. Undersupplied buyers jumped on deals as they saw prices rising. Producers ran out of material quickly,
Canadian Western S-P-F sawmills fielded demand from virtually every region in North American, thus extended their order files into the week of February 22.
With February looming, lumber prices popped back up to recover a drop toward the end of January. In the week ending January 29, 2021, the price of benchmark softwood lumber commodity item Western S-P-F KD 2x4 #2&Btr jumped +$46, or +5%, to US$940 mfbm, from $894 the previous week, said Madison’s Lumber Reporter. Last week's price is +$6 more than it was one month ago when it was $894.
Compared to the price one-year-ago, of US$402 mfbm, last week benchmark softwood lumber item Western S-P-F KD 2x4 #2&Btr was selling for US$940 mfbm which is +538, or +134% more.
The below table is a comparison of recent highs, in September 2020, and current January 2021 benchmark dimension Softwood Lumber 2x4 prices, compared to historical highs of June 2018 and compared to recent lows of September 2015:
