West Coast Business Trends 2025 – A Steady Market On The West Coast
Lumber sources on the West Coast commented on the consistent market the past year. At the time of this writing, the consensus is that the market is slower in the summer versus the earlier months but reflects the supply and demand.
An Oregon lumber spokesman said the market is doing fair to good. “It is better than six months ago,” he said. “I think it is supply driven and we have a lack of supply. We are getting more business from customers we have never worked with.”
The company carries Cherry in 4/4 to 10/4 thickness, Red Oak in 4/4 to 8/4, Hard and Soft Maple in
4/4 and 4/4 to 8/4 respectively. Cherry is currently selling the best because “it is our most abundant and we have a good customer base for it,” he said.
Between domestic and export sales, product is moving well. “We sell to manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers. We had some positive reports out of Ohio where they had a good June like we did. Not so good news out of Toronto, Canada, however, it was not a good June for them,” he said.
“Transportation has not been affected at all for us,” he said. “It could be a slight uptick in demand, but I would say it leans more on supply.”
A lumberman out of California says the market has been consistent for the past two years. “It seems a little slower, but we are up in White Oak and Walnut. Poplar and Red Oak are down, but Maple is upholding,” he said.
The species his company offers are Red and White Oak, Poplar, Birch, Walnut, Maple, Alder and Cherry from 4/4 to 16/4 thickness. They cover upper grades No. 1 Common and FAS with White Oak selling the best.
“Our main business is custom home builders, cabinet shops, retail professionals, finish contractors and some custom millworks,” he said. “We do some replacement flooring, some S4S trim and moulding.”
According to his customers, “People are holding off because they are a little slow. There have been issues with the workforce and with interest rates. The wildfires helped some once the permits were finally issued and building started, getting everything moving towards building some new homes.”
He reported no issues with transportation since, “We run our own trucks for roughly 300 deliveries a day across our yards,” he said.
Another California source thinks the market is not bad but not as busy as it was. “It’s order to order. The orders are there but they are waiting until they have order in hand until they have an inquiry for anything else. It’s not as busy as six months ago,” he said.
“Our customers are all flooring guys and some retail yards,” he said. “They are saying they aren’t as busy, but they are still getting orders. We are just more cautious since it is summertime, that is just how it is right now until the kids are back in school.”
His company sells the usual Walnut, White Oak and Hickory all in 4/4 FAS No. 1 and No. 2 Common. “We are always lucky with transportation since there are so many trucks available in California,” he said.
A Washington lumber salesman said the market is typical for summer. “We work nationally brokering lumber across the nation. It is just kind of slow right now. June was a good shipping month and looking back at January it was the same,” he said.
They market Poplar, Red Oak, long Hard and Soft Maple in 5/4 No. 1 Common with the best seller being Hard Maple. “We are just trying to get a feel for which direction the market is all going to go,” he said.
“We sell to end users and rarely to distributors. Talking to our customers it seems like it is okay, and their orders are in decent shape. I think they are getting by with room for extra capacity,” he said. “Everyone is just sitting back, they sense some softness coming, and until demand picks up, I think everyone is just guessing.”
Rates have come down in transportation, so they are “not really having trouble moving loads,” he said. “Transportation is just not an issue.”
