Southeast Business Trends
A Southeastern Slump
By Lara Stearsman
Associate Editor
“Uncertainty” is the word circulating among many Southeastern softwood lumber representatives as they discuss their own lack of clarity about 2026’s market and the uncertainty they hear from their customers.
Demand is “sluggish” in Arkansas, and the market is “a little below average,” stated a softwood representative. “It’s seasonal to some degree and the economy is an issue. I think it’s about the same as six months ago.”
Southern Yellow Pine in 2 x 4 through 2 x 12 and “No.1, 2, 3A and 4 Common. No. 2 is the best seller. It’s going to Texas mainly for housing,” he said.
Distribution yards, treaters, retail yards and industrial businesses are his customers. “A lot of them see something worrying brewing for 2026. They have a lot of questions about 2026,” he noted. “I think everybody has interest rates and the political landscapes on their minds.”
While there “seem to be a lot of trucks right now, it’s tough to find people at the mills but I think we’re in good shape with labor. I don’t think anybody is going to college to work in a sawmill, so it’s hard to find young people,” he added.
The market in Alabama is “extremely quiet. We have been down for about a month doing some upgrades, so we haven’t had much to sell. It’s worse than six months ago but we should be up and running again soon.”
“We only sell Southern Yellow Pine,” she said. “Probably 60 percent of what we offer is specialty trimmed PET (Precision End Trim) material, and we also sell 2 x 4 and 2 x 6. We handle a prime grade and just plain No. 1. Our PET material is our biggest seller, and we get more money for it. Not many people in our area sell that. We can cut PET in any length a customer wants such as a load of 92 and five-eighths or 104 and five-eighths.”
Their products are used for housing and sold to contractors, who “seem to think we might have a little pick up,” she said.
She complained about labor, sharing, “We hire someone, they come in for the job, work for a few weeks until they get their first paycheck and we never see them again. People just don’t want to work. I wish I could get by without working.”
One source’s customers have many questions about 2026
According to her, it is “only a matter of time until the market turns back around. Why get stressed out about something you can’t control at the present time? A lot of people do but that doesn’t do them any good – it just makes them feel bad.”
A Southern Yellow Pine mill source in South Carolina that kiln-dries their lumber and sells it globally, commented on the market. “It’s hard for me to say what’s going on but the market has slightly improved for us. It’s still pretty bad despite the slight improvement. We’re more of a specialty mill and I think the lack of production caused the improvement. People let their inventory get low and they need to restock. It is better than six months ago.”
His business offers Southern Yellow Pine in 4/4 and 8/4. They sell it rough for exports and the “8/4 No. 2 Common is selling the best for us right now,” he noted.
He sells to distribution yards. When asked about his customers concerns, he stated, “Nobody knows what to do. As far as my domestic customers, I have seen an immense fear suddenly grip the market. I’ve had people put on two months’ worth of orders but with the products we make, we’re usually producing good order files. People tell me, ‘Hey, over the next three months, I need this volume of 12-inch, 10-inch or 8-inch. Let’s start talking about a two-month program.’ They’re switching when they’re placing their orders because of tariffs.
“Everything about the marketplace is worrying — lack of labor, capital to build houses and uncertainty about policies like healthcare costs. Tariffs are running people out of the United States and there are massive industry layoffs as people move business out of the U.S. My pallet customers say their customers aren’t buying from them.
What they’re seeing is people moving to Mexico or Canada to do their assembly and then they ship it here.
“One of our suppliers is an international company, who does gear boxes with production in Europe, Japan, China and other countries. The parts for gear boxes come from different places — some items might come from 20 different countries. They assemble all those parts in the U.S. but they’re moving the assembly to Canada, so they only pay the tariff once. They said they might make something in Ohio, ship it to Toronto and then back to the U.S. It might cross the border four to five times. I’m worried about the next three years.”
While he stated they are “Okay on transportation and labor,” he added that “labor is a ticking time bomb.” Despite the costs, he said they must “pay for transportation to get it. Someone told me a long time ago, when I was trying to save money on saws, ‘What’s the first three letters of what you do?’ I said, ‘S-A-W. Sawmill.’ Then he said, ‘If you can’t afford saws, get out of the sawmill business.’”
