YORK,PA - Wolf says its cabinet and building materials dealers are in a buying mood.

The York, PA-based cabinetry dealer, with has $200 million in sales and claims to be the largest U.S. dealer of kitchen cabinets, launched a  dealers buying sentiment index this month. The initial reading of the Wolf Key Buyer Index is bullish: 79.8.

“WOLF maintains ongoing communications and close relationships with hundreds of independent dealers,” said Tom Wolf, CEO, in announcing the April figures. “The WOLF KBI captures their near-term sentiment in a statistically significant way that informs dealers, manufacturers, builders, the media and others.”

Wolf says it will use its index, based on surveys in the 18-state region where it sells building materials,  to measure how materials buyers see the near-term future of the residential construction industry.

Wolf, which restructured to diversify into building materials last year, launched the index by stablishing a benchmark survey the week of March 23. Wolf found 63.8 percent of respondents planned to increase cabinet and building materials buying in the next four weeks, 31.9 percent said it would remain about the same, and 4.3 percent said purchasing would decline.

In January, Wolf Building Products became Wolf Home Products, with the division focused on  sourcing and selling American-made, Wolf-branded products through Wolf and other channels located in the U.S. and beyond. Wolf says it is now a sourcing company that focuses on identifying and developing products for independent dealers and their professional contractor customers. Wolf develops products and programs for 3,000 pro dealers across 18 Eastern states.

Wolf noted that the company calculates the KBI using a formula similar to the monthly Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), a highly anticipated monthly indicator developed by the Institute for Supply Management.