Lumber futures declined toward $550 per thousand board feet, a six-week low, as a sluggish North American housing market failed to absorb seasonally elevated inventories. Demand softened after January data showed a 7% year-over-year drop in single-family housing starts and an 8.4% decline in units under construction. Elevated mortgage rates around 6.25%, combined with a 5.8% slide in Canadian home sales in January 2026, further weighed on new project activity.
On the supply side, regional inventories remained swollen. Although production curtailments persisted in British Columbia, severe winter storms in the US South disrupted jobsite activity more than mill output, creating a bottleneck at distributors and prompting aggressive discounting by dealers to free up yard space. In addition, the Trump administration’s 45% softwood lumber duties, intended to support prices, instead dampened demand by adding nearly $17,500 to the cost of an average home. This undercut builder confidence and hindered efforts to work through existing supply.
