Now that one third of owner-occupied housing is tightly packed into metro areas, several challenges face our industry. Estimating requires more attention to architectural features and options. Engineering is critical on taller structures, and often requires consideration of mechanical...

In both the lumber and stock markets, there are more disruptions coming in 2019. The immediate influences of government shutdown, mass exodus from stocks, on-going trade war, volatile oil market, fight to suppress interest rates, President Trump’s legal issues, and global economic and...

Why are equipment sales booming when near-term housing starts are projected to be flat?  Possible reasons are: CMs know better and expect good growth and need more capacity. Some markets will grow well and others will contract. CMs buying equipment expect to do better on the same...

BCMC 2018 topped even the 1973 Show. At the Louisville fairgrounds back then, we also sold a record amount of truss machinery, but under vastly different conditions in the U.S. Housing starts had just peaked at 2.4 Million units, nearly twice current levels and 20% higher than any level since...

Tariffs Keep U.S. & Canadian Lumber Border-Bound About Housing Affordability: The evidence continues to pile on. Let’s just skip right over the sources and the comments. They are numerous and more frequent. 25% of all homes for sale have lowered prices. New and existing home...

Comparing 2017 to 1967 doesn’t explain much about our last 50 years. These bookends of our industry’s experience show GDP growth, unemployment, and inflation at nearly identically low levels. Then, seeing today’s housing starts 7% lower than yesteryear’s might portray a...

Part Four:  Apartment Trends of the 1990s and Beyond What was true in the Nineties is just as true today, that large apartment jobs can crowd out single family orders. But with the proper mix of work, a plant can achieve more steady production. Since 1993 was nearly as dire as 2010, most...

Part Three:  Apartment Survival Strategies in the 1980s A few stalwarts “lived to tell” how they survived the Eighties, but none knew magic. What they did then works just as well today—expanded markets, refined quotes, and controlled costs. And in the collapsing...

Part Two: The Turbulent 1980s For CMs to prosper in the 1980s, after surviving the “double-bubble” of apartment building in the 1970s, required great tenacity and innovation. Projects grew in size and complexity. Developers gained momentum and began employing scheduling and...

Part One: 1960 to 1979   Garden style apartments have been good for the truss business, but have morphed into an almost unrecognizable beast. In making this transition, component manufacturers have built on 40+ years of experience, and have conquered this beast, but not without...