New Homes Lead Construction Spending Higher

The 'Value of Construction Put in Place' survey for August was published on Tuesday, three weeks after its scheduled release.  The Census Bureau report provides dollar values for construction work done each month on both new and existing structures and in both the public and private sectors. The August data was delayed by the recently ended federal government shutdown.

Overall, the value of construction put in place during the month was 7.1 percent ahead of August 2012 numbers and increased 0.6 percent from July.  On a seasonally adjusted annualized basis the value of all construction put in place in August was $915.05 billion.

Total residential construction, public and private, was valued on a seasonally adjusted annual basis at $346.46 billion compared to $342.14 billion in July, an increase of 1.3 percent. Residential construction increased 18.3 percent over the level of one year earlier when the total was $292.78 billion.

As is typical for the survey, the private sector accounted for the vast majority--spending an annualized $340.21 billion-- an increase of 1.2 percent from July and 18.7 percent from August 2012.  The residential construction total represented more than half of all private sector construction expenditures for August, an annualized total of $640.51 billion, and its year over year growth was more than three time greater than that of the non-residential component which rose 4.3 percent

The $6.24 billion spent in the public sector on residential construction was up 4.3 percent from July and 0.5 percent from one year earlier.  Residential construction represented only a small fraction of the $274 billion total value of all construction put in place in the public sector.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis total residential expenditures in August were $33.77 million of which $33.23 million was in the private sector.  The year-to-date (YTD) value of all residential construction is $220.78 billion, an increase of 20.0 percent from YTD figures in 2012.  In the private sector the YTD figure for residential construction is $216.82 billion, a 20.5 percent increase over 2012.