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One of the new product improvements Fastmarkets Lumber and Structural Panel subscribers have recently gained access to is our new Fastmarkets Metropolitan Dashboard, which provides key economic indicators of the top 20 metro areas in the US by market size. This snapshot of the data provides a quick tool to compare some key indicators along with Fastmarkets’ most up-to-date market size estimates for lumber and structural panels consumption.
Understanding metropolitan level housing and building material demand has become a bigger question as market participants try to better wrap their heads around disparate geographical trends in the shelter market. Building permits data are available at the metropolitan area level from the US Census and often used as a proxy to size the relative size of these markets.
But those tell only part of the story. Adding our metro area R&R demand estimates paints a much more complete picture of the actual market sizes for lumber and structural panels.
Watch Dustin Jalbert, senior economist in the Fastmarkets wood products team, outline what’s included in the dashboard