NEIMS BRIEtrS I

The U.S. housing industry, called the " crisis headed for a catastrophe" by some, savored a few bits of rare good news recently as its wretched condition began to be widely realized bythepublic....

President Gerald Ford has signed into law a new housing subsidy bill that should provide $$ for 100,000 new housing starts to tie in with other gov. mortgage backing plans expected to help lighten the inventory of unsold homes....

The prime interest rate (what banks charge their best customers) was at the ll%o rate as we went to press, with widespread forecasts of continued declines in lhe cost of money, a vital ingredient in any housing turnaround ....

A vigorous action program bY builders throughout the U.S., with heavy emphasis in Washington, D.C., is credited with bringing government recognition of the problem the Housing Crisis Conference in D.C. brought together reps of 70 organizations to jab the feds and try and hypo them into meaningful actilir ....

Supplier industries to housingo from toasters to 2x4s, from sheets to sheathing, continue to hurt . . . . the asst. sec. of HUD says there is " little hope" for improvement in'74, citing high inierest rates, new home construction down 4AVa and construction unemployment double the national rate ....

Housing starts in Sept. (latest figs.\ edged up a sliver from the previous mo. to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,120,000, the 2nd lowest Sept. rate in 4t/z years and nearly 40% below the year-earlier rate bldg. permits for future construction are off, collapsing to anSt/z year low .... a dip in the starts rate below I million seems inevitable....

Economists disagree on whether the signals nationallY are boom or bust in what appears to be an economy with c dual personality .... the same holds true in the diverse markets for lumber and building materials, some find business good, others don't ....

Southwesr Forest Indusfties, Kaibab, Edward Hines Lumber Co. and the .ffl'l. Forest Products Assn. are among those tak' ing full page ads in newspapers across the U.S. to exPlain to public and legislators alike the far-reaching effects of the housing slump and the need for quick action and lots of it

McGraw-Hill forecasts'75 contracting for new construction will be \Vo above'74 and a housing recovery "handicapped by a shrunken and disorganized homebuilding industry"; they expect starts in'76 to hit 1.8 million rate....

Loui s iana - P ac ific hasbeen correcting a persistent industrY rumor: that corp. HQ. was moving to Cloverdale, Ca.; no way, the West Coast Plywood Sales Group moved, HQ remains in Portland .... Gold Rey Forest Products has closed their re-load centerinDenver....

Hubbard & Johnson-Grossman HQ. operations in N. Calif. have moved to San Carlos .. . . the fut.ni corp., Evans Products,has omitted its 4th quarter dividend, figures to end the year in the red and has reluctantly admitted loaning several of its officers $1.4 million so they could exercise their. stock -options; the comPanY continues discussions concerning sales of selected parts of the corporatlon....

Wickes Corp. says the downgrading of their commercial paper rating by MoodY's Investors Services will have "no effect on the operations of the company's business."

Sunset Industries has closed 4 of their Sunset Builders SuPPIY stores in recent months, are now down to 5 operations in California; their 3 Tucson Az., stores are running hard, fighting a local housing market off 60Vo PIus powerful no-growth forces ....

The feds, in their lst Phase 4 rollback of exec. bonuses, has ordered Kimberly-Clark to get back $467,000 from 27 of its execs.: K-C. which had filed the bonus plan "in advance" of making any payments, said "the government interPretation can serve no purpose excePt to embarass the compan:)" ....

Fairfax Lumber, San Anselmo, Ca., has celebrated its 62nd anniversary; Marysville Fuel & Lumber Co., Marysville, Ca., started in 1906, has closed and auctioned off its assets .... San Marcos, Ca., has exempted 3 locallumber firms from an ordinance banning stacking of materials above the fences enclosing their yards

Boise Cascade has purchased Poway Lumber Co., Poway, Ca. and is building a new manufactured housing plant in West Jordan, Ut. Fred Meyer stores, a leading l-stop shopping chain in the Pac. N.W., selling everything from food to bldg. mtls., is now opening in-house, wholly-owned, savings & loans in their stores ..

' Condominitmc ,acc,tlunted for l4.5%o of alt '73 starts, about triple the number 2 years previous particleboard production was up l5vo in 1973, continuing a rise begun in '68