New Residential Construction Spending +4.4%. Commercial Building -3.7%

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The Commerce Department has released October New Construction data.

Construction spending in October was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $910.8 billion, nearly the same as the sharply revised for the worse September estimate of $910.4 billion (was 940.3 billion).

During the first 10 months of 2009, construction spending totaled $794.0 billion, 12.6% below the $908.9 billion that was reported for the same period in 2008. The October figure is 14.4% below the October 2008 estimate of $1,064.1 billion.

Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $589.0 billion, 0.3% above the revised September estimate of $587.2 billion.

  • Residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $250.3 billion in October, 4.4% above the revised September estimate of $239.7 billion and th e largest rise since March 1998.
  • Nonresidential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $338.6 billion in October, 2.5 percent (±1.1%) below the revised September estimate of $347.5 billion.


In October, the estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of public construction spending was $321.8 billion, 0.4% below the revised September estimate of $323.2 billion.

  • Educational construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $85.7 billion, 1.1% above the revised September estimate of $84.7 billion.
  • Highway construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $87.2 billion, 0.3% below the revised September estimate of $87.4 billion.

Here is a table summarizing the data...