Russ Taylor

With new duties being levied against Canadian lumber, most industry experts thought the price of lumber would continue to rise. Strangely, the opposite has happened, and it might be the right time to consider new construction loans. A report in The Wall Street Journal reported a 25% drop in wood futures markets since hitting a three-year high in August. And if not for some mills cutting back production, the drop may have been larger. “It’s been, quite honestly, very, very strange,” Russ Taylor, a wood market expert and analyst said. “Prices have absolutely tumbled. With western SPF from British Columbia, if you look at August before the new 20% duty kicked in, going from 14.4 to 35.2%, prices were creeping up a little bit. …Because everyone is overstocked, and because demand for lumber has been so low due to high interest rates, Taylor thinks it may take a while for the market to balance back out.

Related coverage in Newsweek, by Giulia Carbonaro: US Housing Market Warning Signal From Lumber Prices