Mark Nowak, vice president of research at the NAHB research center in Upper Marlboro, said wood prices are low at the moment, keeping its popularity high, in contrast to the early 1990s, when the prices spiked up and fluctuated more. Trees are being planted on a regular basis by growers. As long as they continue planting and replacing them, we'll see wood in homes for the next 50 years. And even though some environmentalists decry the cutting down of trees to build houses, there's a view among them that says wood is the best building material there is, even from an environmental point of view. Moore said that U.S. forest areas have increased by 2 percent over the past decade, even though urban sprawl is gobbling up about 750,000 acres a year.
Home building soaks up the majority of wood grown in the United States.
And 35 percent of the wood used for houses here comes from Canada, where forestry and forest products manufacturing form the largest industry. Most of the timber harvested in the United States comes from the forests of private landowners. Much wood is now grown on tree farms, which has brought forestry closer to other forms of agriculture. And with the rise in popularity of engineered wood products, smaller, faster-growing trees can now be used, trees that wouldn't have been suitable before. These aren't our native forests we're talking about.