One of the most significant US housebuilder organisations has warned that the higher softwood timber prices caused by tariffs and duties will affect the entire range of goods used in construction – from framing materials and plywood to OSB, particleboard, cladding boards, roofing, reinforcement and fittings.

At the beginning of March, the chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), Buddy Hughes, approached the US Trade Representative, lawyer Jamieson Greer, of President D. Trump's administration to discuss the impact of tariffs on construction across the United States. Housebuilding has been one of the central planks of D. Trump's presidential election campaigns in 2016, 2020 and 2024.

Barely 24 hours before Trump threatened to impose a global tariff on a range of construction materials, including timber, the influential National Association of Home Builders forecast that 94 million US households (70% of the market) would not be able to afford a home at the average price of 400,000 US dollars, based on income thresholds and lending rules.

These conclusions form part of the housing affordability pyramid published in the 2025 price analysis. It sets out the number of households able to buy a home at various price levels: “The largest share of households falls into the first tier, where the price of a home is below 200,000 US dollars. As house prices rise, fewer and fewer households can afford the next price level. Homes at the very highest prices, above 2 million US dollars, have the smallest number of potential buyers.”

According to NAHB figures, such a “pyramid” is based on income thresholds and lending standards: “Under these assumptions, the minimum income needed to buy a home worth 200,000 US dollars at a mortgage rate of 6.5% is 61,487 US dollars. It is estimated that in 2025 the incomes of approximately 52.87 million US households will not exceed this threshold. They will therefore be able to afford to buy homes priced at no more than 200,000 US dollars.”

“These 52.87 million households make up the bottom section of the “pyramid”. Of the remaining households that can afford to buy a home priced up to 200,000 US dollars, 23.53 million are able to afford one with a maximum price of roughly 200,000 to 300,000 US dollars. These households form the second step of the “pyramid”. Each subsequent step narrows further, indicating the falling number of households that can afford ever more expensive homes.”

These conclusions were published after it was reported that more than 70% of the Americans surveyed by REsimpli stress the negative impact of timber tariffs on the US housing market. More than a third (33.75%) expressed considerable concern that the so-called trade war could affect the timber supply chains that matter to the housing market.

”69.50% of respondents expect the housing market to become less affordable during the “trade war”, raising concerns about a possible slowdown in property transactions... while 55.92% of respondents expect a negative impact on housing affordability in the long term,” says property analyst Asad Zaman, who spoke to Wood Central. “More than 73% of respondents believe that this situation will have at least some effect on homebuyers' ability to secure loans or mortgages, although most respondents expect the impact to be moderate rather than severely negative."

US builders are building up large stocks of timber and seeking to substitute imported materials – for example, replacing Douglas fir with domestically available Southern yellow pine – in order to cope with this rapidly changing situation caused by tariffs.

Home Innovation Research Labs surveys show that, in an average US single-family home, in addition to roughly 15,000 board feet (1,000 board feet is 2.34 cubic metres) of framing timber, 2,200 square metres of softwood plywood and 6,800 square metres of OSB panels are used.

Of course, wooden windows, doors and beams must be added as well: “For a timber producer to earn anything, sawmills build into the price the percentage margin between sales revenue and the cost price of the goods, taking account of the new situation in the timber industry,” NAHB notes. “As a result, changes in the price of softwood timber directly affect the price of new homes. Together with rising wages for construction workers and higher interest rates, this is another reason why affordability in the housing market is falling.”