The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averages 5.85%, higher than last week.
تعليقات
Builders face economic uncertainty and affordability challenges, including higher construction costs, labor shortages, and elevated financing expenses.
Spruce sawlog stumpage averages Euro 81.33 per m3, while industrial roundwood purchases from private forests fall 39% from a year earlier.
Official statistics show a small export gain but a sharper domestic decline, while higher energy and input costs add pressure alongside U.S. tariff policy, rising imports, weak consumer spending, and slow housing construction.
Completed construction floor space falls 40% from March, while floor area under development rises to 5,451 million m2.
Lumber prices rose from late-2025 lows, but duty deposits and reduced operating days continued to pressure liquidity and volumes.
Higher lumber prices lifted results, but logistics constraints cut shipments and increased inventories.
The analysis compares three wood-based synthetic methanol pathways and finds gasification uses less electricity and costs less, while EU RFNBO definitions credit combustion pathways more fully than gasification.
Lumber pricing rises on tighter supply, but weak demand, duties, and disruptions cut shipments and keep both lumber and pulp operations under pressure.
Exports fell 6.6%.
Volatile mortgage rates, weather disruptions, and cautious housing demand weigh on results and margins, with the largest pricing and gross-margin pressure in engineered wood products.
Lumber sales realizations rise 13% from fourth-quarter averages and oriented strand board realizations rise 8%.
High financing costs, construction-input prices and currency weakness are expected to limit new procurement.
The company points to weaker housing affordability in Ontario and British Columbia and expects its Clinton, Ontario automation site to start operating in July 2026.
Mortgage rates above 6% and tariff uncertainty shape 2026 operating plans and input-cost expectations.
Sawlogs fall 5% in March, while pulpwood down 1%.
More than half of tracked metros post annual price declines, with Denver the weakest.
Finland consumes 78.9 million m3 of roundwood in 2025 Headline option 3: Finland forest industry roundwood use rises 6% in 2025 Subheading: Forest industry processing totalled 66.1 million m3, while energy use fell to 12.8 million m3.
Significant overcapacity in the forest industry led to production curtailments that reduced demand for pulpwood, and pulpwood prices fell during the quarter. Log demand decreased, and log prices began to decline slightly from very high levels.
The builder cited affordability concerns and competitive conditions, and said it adjusted incentives, sales pace and production while working down spec inventory.