Wet Weather, Gradually Improving Home Construction Brighten Outlook For Nation’s Timber Growers

With help from wet winter weather that has continued into the spring, a slowly improving home construction industry is finally providing a brighter outlook for timber growers in the South and other timber regions of the nation.

That’s the encouraging outlook for the forest products sector of the U.S. economy from Marshall Thomas, president of F&W Forestry, Inc., one of the largest U.S. forest management and consulting firms based in heart of the nation’s southern pine belt.

“After years of depressing news for timber growers, all of the economic indicators seem to be positive right now— housing starts are up, building permits are up, interest rates are up slightly but still very low, and exchange rates are favorable,” Thomas writes in the spring edition of his firm’s newsletter, the F&W Forestry Report.

“While this recovery, at least in our sector, has been frustratingly slow, it has at least been consistent—which means we should be able to expect slow but steady price increases for trees as we continue through the recovery…” Thomas said.

TO SEE THE FULL ARTICLE IN THE SPRING 2014 F&W FORESTRY REPORT, SUBSCRIBE NOW.