Along with the rest of the world, we’re forecasting housing demand in 2014 and global economic growth in general with cautious optimism said Ed Elias, president of the APA-The Engineered Wood Association. Source: Woodworking Network (US)
He said that the economy was slowly improving and the housing market was recovering in many areas.
APA is forecasting 1.1 million housing starts in the US in 2014, up 16% from an expected 945,000 starts in 2013. In Canada, the expectation is for overall housing starts to remain similar to 2013 at 187,000.
Elias said that confidence among consumers and builders was still fragile, and challenges, from a tight lending market to labor issues, remained.
Of particular note is the fact that multi-family construction was up 32% relative to single-family starts at 16% for 2013. This trend is expected to continue yet for several years.
The driving force for this expectation is the assumption that as household growth among young people picks up, their first move is going to be into a rental apartment and not toward the purchase of a single-family house.
On the positive side, home prices are generally higher by 12% relative to a year ago.
Real gross domestic product is expected to average 2.8% through 2018, which is potentially high enough to improve the employment rate to levels where housing starts by 2015 could be as high as 1.0-1.2 million units per year.
By 2018, APA forecasters are projecting that single family housing starts could reach 1.05 million per year and multi-family starts at 0.5 million starts per year.
Demand growth in other end-use sectors, such as repair and remodeling, nonresidential construction and industrial markets, is expected to average 3% in 2014.
The APA is remaining open to opportunities to expand programs for new and developing engineered wood products and systems specifically, related to housing.
The Association is pursuing the maintenance and expansion of structural wood-based panel wall sheathing.
