U.S. Housing: Forecasts Are Being Revised Upwards

摘要

Lumber and panel markets are "red hot", with buyers showing little resistance to prices, Last week, prices for Western Spruce-Pine-Fir 2 X 4s shot past the 455 dollar per thousand board foot level, setting a new record high OSB and plywood prices arealso up. Building permits in June were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.924 million units, off the pace of 2.097 million units in May, but 2.8% higher than June 2003. For the first six months of 2004, U.S. housing starts are at 1.847 million units, an increase of 8.3% for the similar period in 2003 Consensus forecasts continue to be revised upward In its El-Annual Survey of Housing Starts, Random Lengths published that a survey of five forecasters had been revised upward by 8.7% from a January2004 consensus of 1 742 million new units to 1 894 million in Tune.