US Multifamily Starts Jump 76% as Freight Peak Stalls

American apartment builders did something in June that panel sellers should notice. Multifamily housing starts jumped 76.2% to an annualised 532,000 units, lifting total US starts 19% to 1.43 million, according to Census Bureau and HUD data reported by NAHB. Single-family barely moved, slipping 0.2% to 895,000 and sitting 3.2% below June 2025. The composition of that headline matters more than the headline itself, because concrete apartment work pulls formwork panels in a way stick-framed tract housing never does.

Demand Splits by Building Type

NAHB counted 682,000 apartment units under construction in June against 582,000 single-family homes. Podium and mid-rise concrete work runs on reusable form-face panels, and that pull is separate from the sheathing demand tied to light framing. Permits tell a cooler story. Overall permits fell 3% to a 1.37 million annualised rate, with multifamily permits down 4.2% and single-family down 2.4%. So the backlog is real while the pipeline behind it thins. We would read June as a strong quarter for panel replenishment rather than the start of a new cycle, and we are pricing our own US-facing inquiries on that basis.

Europe Grinds Higher

Eurostat put euro-area construction production up 0.6% in April against March and 0.9% against a year earlier. The EU figure ran warmer at 0.8% monthly and 1.5% annually. Civil engineering led the euro-area mix at 0.8% on the month while building construction slipped 0.1%. Infrastructure is where film-faced plywood demand concentrates in that split. Retaining structures and bridge decks need form faces that survive repeated pours without losing the casting surface.

Ocean Freight Comes Off the Peak

The freight climb that dominated our early-July brief has stalled. Drewry's World Container Index fell 2% to $4,547 per 40ft container in the week to 16 July, after touching $4,639 on 9 July, its highest reading since September 2024. Shanghai to Los Angeles came off 3% to $6,272 and Shanghai to Genoa dropped 3% to $6,300, while Shanghai to New York held near $7,879 and Shanghai to Rotterdam eased 1% to $4,873. Carriers had pushed for FAK rates between $7,900 and $8,500 on 15 July. Those increases did not hold. Nine blank sailings are booked on the transpacific for the following week, and Drewry expects that capacity trimming to keep rates roughly flat rather than let them slide. Congestion is easing on the European side too, with average vessel waiting times at Genoa down 33 hours week on week.

Lumber Holds Its Floor

Raw material costs stayed firm through mid-July. Lumber traded at $635 per thousand board feet on 17 July on Trading Economics data. Madison's framing index rose 0.2% week on week to 10 July, running 4.4% above a month earlier and 3.1% above last year. Mill discipline rather than demand strength is holding that floor, which is why the firmness has not translated into panel scarcity.

Vietnam's Export Book Rotates

Vietnamese supply is growing, but the destinations are shifting under it. Wood and wood-product shipments reached $1.53 billion in June, taking first-half turnover to $8.54 billion, up 4.4% year on year, per the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment. The destination mix is the real story. Through the first five months, shipments to China rose 49% and Japan gained 5.1%, while the United States fell 8%. The US still absorbs close to half of total revenue, with China at 15% and Japan at 12.9%. The Netherlands grew fastest among major markets and Korea fell hardest. Hanoi is holding to a $19 billion full-year target. Mills have kept formwork and structural lines busy against that rotation, which is why export-ready stock has stayed available even as one destination market cooled.

Trade and Compliance: Watch the Scope

US Commerce final antidumping determinations for hardwood and decorative plywood from Vietnam and Indonesia were docketed for around 13 July, and no final rates had been published as this brief went out. Preliminary margins stood at 196.14% for Vietnam, a 19.98% to 84.94% band for Indonesia and 187.27% for China, alongside preliminary countervailing rates. Scope is the detail buyers keep getting wrong. The petition covers hardwood and decorative plywood, and separately the Section 232 wood proclamation did not extend to plywood classified under HTS heading 4412, according to analysis published by Wiley and by Troutman Pepper Locke. Formwork and structural panels are classified differently from the decorative goods the case targets, though importers should verify classification against their own entry documents rather than assume any category is unaffected.

Europe's compliance clock runs to 30 December 2026 for large operators and 30 June 2027 for smaller ones under the EU Deforestation Regulation. Vietnam has roughly 868,000 hectares under sustainable forest-management certification against nearly 4.9 million hectares of planted forest, with a production forest area code pilot covering about 25,500 hectares across five northern provinces. That gap is the honest constraint on EU-bound volume over the next 18 months, and it favours suppliers already running FSC or PEFC chain-of-custody systems.

Outlook

Drewry expects freight to hold near current levels in the near term. US tariffs are due to expire on 24 July with further measures signalled for early August, which adds uncertainty rather than direction. Lumber looks supported while sawmill output stays restrained. For sourcing teams, the practical read is that the booking window has widened. Buyers who deferred through the June climb now have a stretch of flatter rates to work with, and the demand pull sitting in US apartment construction and European civil engineering is where formwork volume lands this quarter. Booking against that visible backlog beats waiting for permit data to turn.

About Vinawood

Vinawood is a Vietnamese plywood manufacturer established in 1992, shipping more than 5,000 containers a year to buyers in 55+ countries. Our formwork, structural and film-faced ranges carry CE marking under EN 13986, EPA TSCA Title VI compliance for the US market, and FSC and PEFC chain-of-custody certification for buyers preparing for the EU Deforestation Regulation. Every sheet is individually inspected across a 12-step production process. To match a grade to your next project or request current lead times, contact our export team through vinawoodltd.com.