Forest and Wood Products Australia, in partnership with the Green Triangle Forest Industries Hub, has received an Agricultural Trade and Market Access Cooperation program grant of $1.3 million (A$) to explore opportunities to create new wood products using softwood and hardwood pulp.
Wood Markets News
Mass Timber Passive House Condo Project Coming to Toronto
A venture between R-Hauz, Windmill Development, and Leader Lane to build the first-ever mass timber passive house condominium project in Toronto is in the design phase. The project will include three six-story residential buildings to be built near the Mimico GO station in Etobicoke and will have a total of 83-units.
Coillte Announces New Strategy to Expand Ireland’s Carbon Capture and Forestry Planting
Coillte, which manages 440,000 hectares of Ireland’s state-owned woodlands (7% of the country’s land area), has announced that it has launched a major new strategy to optimize the benefits from forestry in Ireland. Coillte plans to greatly expand carbon capture, forestry planting, biodiversity, and recreational facilities between now and 2050.
Despite Headwinds, the U.S. Leading Economic Index® Continued to Improve in March 2022
The Conference Board, a non-partisan, not-for-profit think tank founded in 1916, released today (3-18-22) the Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the U.S. in March 2022. According to the report, the LEI for the U.S. increased by 0.3% in March to 119.8 (2016=100), following a 0.6% increase in February.
Mortgage Rates Continued to Climb in Week Ending April 21, 2022, Marking the 7th Consecutive Weekly Increase
Freddie Mac has released its Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) for the week ending April 21, 2022. The PMMS reports that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.11% with an average 0.8 point, up from last week when it averaged 5.00%. A year ago, at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 2.97%.
Weekly Jobless Claims Move Lower in the Week Ending April 16, 2022
The U.S. Department of Labor is reporting that an additional 184,000 Americans (seasonally adjusted) made their initial filing for unemployment benefits during the week ending on Saturday, April 16, 2022. This is a decrease of 2,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The 4-week moving average was 177,250.
Existing Home Sales Drop for Second Consecutive Month in March 2022
The National Association of Realtors® reported on Wednesday that total existing home sales dropped -2.7% in March from February to a seasonally adjusted rate at 5.77 million homes. This marks the second consecutive month of declines.
Mortgage Applications Decline for Sixth Consecutive Week in the Week Ending April 15, 2022
According to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association, for the week ending April 15, 2022, the Market Composite Index (a measure of mortgage loan application volume) declined -5.0% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier.
Canadian Consumer Price Index Up 1.4% Month-Over-Month and 6.7% Year-Over-Year in March 2022
Statistics Canada (StatsCan) reported today (4-20-22) that Canadian consumer prices increased 6.7% year-over-year in March 2022, one percentage point higher than the gain in February (+5.7%). This was the largest increase since January 1991 (+6.9%).
Fannie Mae’s Economic and Strategic Research Group Downgrades Its Forecast for Real GDP Growth for 2022 and 2023
Expectations of aggressive monetary policy tightening through 2023 by the Federal Reserve are likely to further soften economic output already being weighed down by decades-high inflation and the ongoing effects stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.