Are Lumber Prices Stabilizing as 2025 Approaches?

New data suggests that pricing for lumber will be more predictable giving builders more confidence in pricing.

Madison’s Lumber Reporter, the well-regarded source for pricing information, is forecasting more stability going forward for lumber producers and end-users.

“Given that the macroeconomic indicators and specific factors affecting the lumber industry last year are well known,” Keta Kosman, publisher of the Vancouver, Canada-based source, said in a recent interview, “that prices are stabilizing at this time of year is a good sign. This makes it easier for both sawmills and home builders to plan for the coming months; especially the next spring construction season.”

This stabilization is in sharp contrast to the past several years, the publication said, when the pandemic, rising mortgage rates causing a downturn in building and other factors made forecasting and setting prices especially difficult. “There were so many unknowns and first-time occurrences in the past five years that both buyers and sellers of solid wood products took a wait-and-see approach,” she said in the interview. “Even as prices leveled off, and the facts of markedly increased cost-of-production at sawmills are widely known, customers have remained wary of what might be the next shock.”

A recent analysis by the National Association of Home Builders reported that the Random Lengths Framing Composite Price dropped 7.0 percent versus a year ago for the week ending Sept. 20 while lumber futures are up 6.5 percent for the same period. Structural panel composite prices fell 0.2 percent from the previous week.

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