Hardwood suppliers in the Southeast, at the time of this writing, have varied reviews on the market but the majority said that business is slow.
In Tennessee, a lumber salesman said that half of the market is excellent, while the other half falls short. As for the difference in the market compared to six months ago, he replied that as a company that “deals primarily in the high-end, architecturally motivated custom work in a global situation,” they are still, “reasonably okay but when people drop out of some of the architectural products, they get into some of the furniture products, cabinet products or the mass-produced items. That market has still got quite a bit of turmoil.”
His company offers Red and White Oak, Ash, Walnut and Poplar in FAS No. 1 and No. 2 Common and most of the thicknesses they deal in are 4/4 and 5/4. He stated that “the current product that we’re finding is doing the best for us is White Oak. Walnut is decent and so is Ash. Most of the FAS products are better than the No. 1 and No. 2 Common products. Even FAS Poplar is decent.”
He said he sells to architectural millwork manufacturers as well as distributors who sell to their own markets. He relies on the “distribution process to sell to distributors and importers globally.” Most of their customers are in Asia, where their “primary functions are for cabinetry, flooring and furniture.” They don’t, however, sell to many of the end users in the United Emirates. As for commentary his customers have made, he stated that “most of the flooring customers that we sell to are saying their markets and margins are soft. For kitchen cabinetry, that market seems to be soft because of substitutes and the housing climate in general so they may be facing more of an issue trying to match the product that goes into the home and matching a cost point. So, everything is really different but I don’t think we have to worry as much about what might be going into certain markets that are flush with cash, such as Saudi Arabia. Some of the European countries are stronger than the others.”
Regarding concerns about transportation and other negative factors that may be creating challenges for the business, he expressed that “transportation globally is becoming much more difficult than transportation domestically. We’re beginning to have a lot of export containers that have the bookings changed. They’re not consistent. The steam ship lines are wanting to send empty containers out of the United States again because the price of import freighting coming back to the United States has increased dramatically. So, we’re a drag on the export lumber market according to the steamship lines, which is a drag on their industry. They’re really giving us a lot less respect than they have in the past.”
A lumber spokesperson in Arkansas noted that, as far as commentary on the marketplace, “we are starting to see a slowdown in lumber and the cants. We’re starting to see some people putting quotas into effect where three months ago, whatever we produced we could ship, so we are seeing a little bit of a change in the marketplace as far as demand. Even price has dropped a little bit on the cants. Lumber dropped a couple of months ago and it’s doing well holding there and railroad ties are steady.”
When questioned whether the company was doing better or worse than six months ago, he replied that it’s worse because of all “the price dropping and the quotas. Now one thing we are seeing is that it’s hot down here. It’s in the upper 90s, so that slows down logging but we just came through a period where it rained quite a bit, so incoming logs slowed. The incoming logs are picking up now because of the drier weather, so we’re getting more logs than we were three or four months ago but we do see a slowdown in purchases from our customer base.”
They handle mainly Red and White Oak, Hickory, Gum, a little Ash and very little Cherry. White Oak is selling the best and he said that “the state market is still strong. Now we do hear that there is going to be some slowdown but they’re pulling the staves. So that’s a real push for the demand on White Oak.” As for thicknesses, they offer mostly “4/4 and 5/4 on the lumber end. The ties are heavy in the 7 x 9 and 8 x 8 right now,” he said.
They sell mainly to the flooring manufacturers, the pallet companies and the railroad tie industry. While he stated that he is “not doom and gloom,” his customers, he noted, say that “we are seeing a bit of a slowdown in the economy, even though the stock market really isn’t showing it. The customers are feeling the repercussions just like we are. I think overall, people are starting to watch their pennies a little bit more with fuel cost up and food prices up. With all that being driven up, they must tighten the belt up someplace and they most likely need food more than they need a new floor.”
In Georgia, a lumber salesman said that the state of the market is “bad and getting worse. There have been some improvements on certain items going overseas but it’s still extremely slow.” To him, the market is worse now than it was six months ago, for which he faulted pricing and said, “it does seem like demand is better on certain items but one would think that some prices would be moving in an upward direction but they’re just not.”
He noted that the company deals in “all the Southern species: Red Oak, White Oak, Poplar, Ash and Cyprus” in “straight 4/4.” According to the source, “it’s kind of a mixed bag,” as Poplar is doing better and Red Oak is doing pretty well but the No. 2 Common Red Oak that they also offer is not. White Oak is strong and he mentioned that Ash is “doing okay.”
They sell to domestic flooring plants and export directly to Asian countries such as Vietnam and China. He stated that his customers are saying that the market is slow there, too and that everybody is “just hoping that going into the end of the year, they’ll start improving but nobody is very optimistic. Hopefully after the first of the year, in the spring of 2025, things will start improving.”
