Lumber Prices

Despite a recession that has crippled the housing industry, lumber prices have jumped more than 30 percent in the past six weeks, home builders and industry members have said.The National Association of Home Builders, a trade group based in Washington that represents builders' interests, laid the blame on proposed logging restrictions on millions of acres of forest land in the Pacific northwest and California to protect the habitat of the northern spotted owl.That has sent timber buyers scrambling to buy supplies to protect themselves from possible shortages, said Mark Ellis Tipton, a Raleigh, N.C., home builder and president of the national builders association.

SEATTLE -- Weyerhaeuser Co. abandoned plans to sell its paper division yesterday, saying it will merge it with Canada's Domtar Inc. in a $3.3 billion transaction that will create North America's largest maker of paper used in facsimile and copying machines. Weyerhaeuser's shareholders will get a 55 percent stake in the new company. The American firm also will get a majority of the 13-member board, plus $1.35 billion in cash. The new company will have 14,000 employees, be based in Montreal and will be led by Raymond Royer, Domtar's president and chief executive officer.

Soaring lumber prices have added several thousand dollars t the cost of an average new home in Maryland just since October. And the doubling of lumber prices at the wholesale level has left builders and lumber retailers groping for explanations."

Skyrocketing prices for building materials are putting the pinch on homebuilders and contractors, and consumers can expect to keep paying more for new houses and home improvement projects. Strong demand and a lagging supply of wood products are the principal reasons for a continued rise in prices, according to Random Lengths, a publication in Eugene, Ore., that tracks the lumber market. Steel prices also have increased, pushing up costs for nails and other items. Random Lengths' weekly market report says the framing lumber composite price, which tracks the prices of 15 key softwood lumber items, is up more than 30 percent over the past year, from $285 per 1,000 board feet last year to $371.

WILKESBORO, N.C. - Lowe's Cos. Inc. said yesterday that same-store sales will miss forecasts this quarter because of lower lumber prices and the cost of converting Eagle Hardware stores into its own stores. Sales at stores open at least a year will rise at a low single-digit percentage rate in the third quarter ending Oct. 27, less than the 4 percent to 6 percent gain it had expected, Lowe's said. The sluggish sales come as rising interest rates and gasoline prices pushed consumers to slow spending, analysts said.

Skyrocketing prices for building materials are putting the pinch on homebuilders and contractors, and consumers can expect to keep paying more for new houses and home improvement projects. Strong demand and a lagging supply of wood products are the principal reasons for a continued rise in prices, according to Random Lengths, a publication in Eugene, Ore., that tracks the lumber market. Steel prices also have increased, pushing up costs for nails and other items. Random Lengths' weekly market report says the framing lumber composite price, which tracks the prices of 15 key softwood lumber items, is up more than 30 percent over the past year, from $285 per 1,000 board feet last year to $371.

WASHINGTON -- The nascent housing recovery should help buoy other sectors of the economy, but its potential impact is expected to be limited by the modest scope of the housing pickup.Traditionally, a surge in housing activity benefits kindred industries such as building materials and big durable items needed for homes.While private analysts and officials in trade associations expect this multiplier effect in 1992, the limited breadth of the housing recovery and the depressed level of many industries that typically profit from a housing improvement may dilute some of the impact.

The recovery in the homebuilding industry is weak and susceptible to another downturn, especially if rates rise suddenly, the head of the Ryland Group Inc. says."

Elaine Northrop ranks among top 1% of agentsElaine Northrop of the Ellicott City/Howard County office of Coldwell Banker Grempler Realty Inc. has been chosen as one of the International President's Elite, an honor reserved for the top 1 percent of Coldwell Banker's 55,000 North American sales associates.Northrop has averaged $32 million in sales for the past three years and has sold at least $20 million worth of homes each year since 1991.The No. 1 Coldwell Banker agent in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, Northrop was also the top seller among all real estate agents in Maryland.

Despite a recession that has crippled the housing industry, lumber prices have jumped more than 30 percent in the past six weeks, home builders and industry members have said.The National Association of Home Builders, a trade group based in Washington that represents builders' interests, laid the blame on proposed logging restrictions on millions of acres of forest land in the Pacific northwest and California to protect the habitat of the northern spotted owl.That has sent timber buyers scrambling to buy supplies to protect themselves from possible shortages, said Mark Ellis Tipton, a Raleigh, N.C., home builder and president of the national builders association.

WILKESBORO, N.C. - Lowe's Cos. Inc. said yesterday that same-store sales will miss forecasts this quarter because of lower lumber prices and the cost of converting Eagle Hardware stores into its own stores. Sales at stores open at least a year will rise at a low single-digit percentage rate in the third quarter ending Oct. 27, less than the 4 percent to 6 percent gain it had expected, Lowe's said. The sluggish sales come as rising interest rates and gasoline prices pushed consumers to slow spending, analysts said.

Pity the poor termite.With volatile lumber prices and a shortage of skilled craftsmen, builders are turning to new, easier-to-use man-made materials to construct today's homes.Decks are being made of plastic. Frames are being made of steel. Walls are being made of concrete and polystyrene.And the demand for alternative building materials is there."Buyers are wanting to be environmentally friendly as well as reducing the energy bill," says Ralph Lee Smith, spokesman for the NAHB Research Center, the research arm of the National Association of Home Builders.

Elaine Northrop ranks among top 1% of agentsElaine Northrop of the Ellicott City/Howard County office of Coldwell Banker Grempler Realty Inc. has been chosen as one of the International President's Elite, an honor reserved for the top 1 percent of Coldwell Banker's 55,000 North American sales associates.Northrop has averaged $32 million in sales for the past three years and has sold at least $20 million worth of homes each year since 1991.The No. 1 Coldwell Banker agent in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, Northrop was also the top seller among all real estate agents in Maryland.

WASHINGTON -- Homebuilders hope to rein in development costs and keep mortgage rates low as part of a national, three-pronged campaign launched last week.Builders want to overhaul the government's regulation of wetlands and end the gridlock driving up lumber prices, the National Association of Home Builders said after members met for a legislative conference on Wednesday.The trade group also urged the Federal Reserve to reassure financial markets that it does not plan any dramatic increases in short-term rates.

WASHINGTON -- Builders broke ground for new homes at only a modestly faster pace in May, despite a reported early-spring sales boom and a rise in construction jobs, the Commerce Department reported yesterday.The somewhat disappointing 2.4 percent rise in housing starts meant this crucial sector is likely to contribute almost nothing to gross domestic product for the April-June quarter, despite the lowest mortgage rates in about 20 years and a reversal of lumber prices that soared over the winter.

Don't buy the timber lobby's scare tacticsThe good news, reported in The Evening Sun, is that the U.S. Forest Service is preparing a plan for phasing out taxpayer-subsidized timber sales in our national forests ("Forest Service wants to ax low-price logging," April 30).The bad news is that companies who have ridden this government gravy train for so many years are mobilizing to block the initiative. They are claiming, for example, that the government actually loses money because of compliance with environmental standards.

More than a month after Hurricane Andrew devastated communities in southern Florida, Maryland lumber yards and homebuilders are still paying higher prices for plywood and other lumber products -- and wondering whether increased demand is the sole reason.For example, a 4-by-8-foot sheet of plywood that is one-half inch thick sold for about $8.49 before the hurricane. Today, that plywood sells for $9.99, said Fred Grzeskiewicz Jr., Hechinger's wood products buyer.At the same time, local home store retailers -- including Hechinger and Home Depot -- have begun rationing the sale of plywood to protect their regular customers' source of supply.

WASHINGTON -- Builders broke ground for new homes at only a modestly faster pace in May, despite a reported early-spring sales boom and a rise in construction jobs, the Commerce Department reported yesterday.The somewhat disappointing 2.4 percent rise in housing starts meant this crucial sector is likely to contribute almost nothing to gross domestic product for the April-June quarter, despite the lowest mortgage rates in about 20 years and a reversal of lumber prices that soared over the winter.

The recovery in the homebuilding industry is weak and susceptible to another downturn, especially if rates rise suddenly, the head of the Ryland Group Inc. says."

Soaring lumber prices have added several thousand dollars t the cost of an average new home in Maryland just since October. And the doubling of lumber prices at the wholesale level has left builders and lumber retailers groping for explanations."