Private Residential Spending Continues to Grow
Originally published by: NAHB — January 4, 2021
The following article was produced and published by the source linked to above, who is solely responsible for its content. SBC Magazine is publishing this story to raise awareness of information publicly available online and does not verify the accuracy of the author’s claims. As a consequence, SBC cannot vouch for the validity of any facts, claims or opinions made in the article.
NAHB analysis of Census Construction Spending data shows that total private residential construction spending rose 2.7% in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $658.1 billion. Total private residential construction spending was 16.1% higher than a year ago.
The monthly gains are largely attributed to the strong growth of spending on single-family and improvements. Single-family construction spending rose to a $341.5 billion annual pace in November, up by 5.1%. This is in line with the strong readings of single-family housing starts and solid builder confidence. Remodeling spending inched up by 0.2% in November. Meanwhile, multifamily construction spending stayed flat after reaching a record high in October, and was 15.8% higher since a year ago.
The NAHB construction spending index, which is shown in the graph below (the base is January 2000), illustrates the solid growth in single-family construction and home improvement from the second half of 2019 to February 2020, before the COVID-19 hit the U.S. economy, and the quick rebounds since July 2020. New multifamily construction spending has picked up the pace after a slowdown from the second half of 2019.
Private nonresidential construction spending decreased 0.8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $453.8 billion. And it was 9.5% lower than a year ago. The largest contribution to this month-over-month nonresidential spending decrease was made by the class of manufacturing ($12.3 billion), followed by power ($10.1 billion), and lodging ($8.3 billion).
