Northeast Business Trends
A Slow Yet Unsteady Northeast
By Cadance Johnson
Contributing Writer
The consensus from lumber sources in the Northeast carrying a variety of softwood products and selling to different markets is that the market is slow overall, many saying “quiet.” While the winter storm many weeks ago halted progress, the weather isn’t the sole cause of a market that is, according to many representatives, worse than six months ago. The sources faulted the economy, interest rates, government indecision, transportation costs and a lack of housing starts for the dragging marketplace.
“Things aren’t as busy as they could be,” in Maine according to one lumber source, who also shared, “It’s definitely slowed down from six months ago. We got hammered with snow a while back, which slowed operations.”
Their focus is Eastern White Pine, which they offer in 4/4, 5/4 and some 8/4. “Most of the grades we carry are Standard, Premium, Finished Grade and D & Better Select. We sell a lot of Premium and get a lot of demand for our D & Better Select. Those two are our biggest movers,” he added.
Retail yards in Maine and wholesale distributors out of state are their customers. “We have no issues exporting and haven’t seen a slowdown. We do have some accounts that export to Pakistan, India and other countries. A lot of people have shared seeing a slower market. We just need to adjust to the market not being so busy and find ways to fill in the downtime. Better weather, more certainty about government policies and economic stability would help improve the market,” he noted.
New York, like Maine, is “very quiet and slow. It’s also that way at the yard level. It was mostly weather related,” noted a lumber representative, who noted that it is worse than six months ago.
Economic stability and home starts were the main solutions listed by softwood lumber sources when asked what could improve market conditions.
“We don’t carry any framing lumber but have Douglas Fir for timbers and porch/flooring products in Clear Vertical Grain and Select grades.” In addition to Fir, he said they offer the following hardwoods: dark red meranti and ipe. Fir is “probably” the bestseller, he noted.
As wholesalers, he explained they sell to lumberyards, not the general public or contractors.
A spokesperson in New Hampshire, like Maine and New York, reported a slow market. He blamed the economy as “The weather has been optimal for timber harvesting but suboptimal for sales.”
It is “equally bad” as six months ago with “no changes. I believe home starts would be the only thing that could make any significant change. Interest rates and availability of capital for people to be able to buy something would help,” he added.
For Spruce, Fir, Norway Spruce and Red Pine, they offer “grades from economy all the way up to Premium. We do everything and utilize the entirety of the tree.” When asked which was the bestseller, he replied, “All of the species are lumped into the same category, and it depends on the quality of each individual log.”
While they don’t export, they sell to distribution yards, wholesalers and end users.
Transportation is “very volatile,” he said. “This is caused by a combination of a lack of available trucks and pricing. Usually, the trucks that we can find are really expensive. We use rail, too, and that’s expensive.”
Regarding his labor force, he commented, “We’ve been modifying our mills, and every modification removes jobs that we couldn’t fill. We’ve done some fairly large modifications to reduce our labor because we were having problems finding labor but with the new innovations in the mill, it’s far better than it was several years ago.”
