April Construction Spending Flat, March Numbers Better than Reported

The Census Bureau said today that the value of all construction put in place in April was up slightly from March and 8.6 percent above totals in April 2013.  Most of the earlier reported March numbers however were revised upward by a significant amount.   Construction of all types and funded by both public and private sources was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $953.6 billion.  This was a 0.2 percent increase from the March estimate of $951.6 billion, revised from $942.5 billion originally reported in May.  In April 2013 total construction dollars were estimated at an annual rate of 878.4 billion.

So far in 2014 construction spending has totaled $274.5 billion, 8.9 percent above the $252.1 billion spent during the same period in 2013.

Privately funded construction in April was at a seasonally adjusted rate of $686.5 billion, essentially unchanged from the March estimate of $686.8 billion (revised from $679.6 billion) and 11.7 percent higher than a year earlier. 

Privately funded residential construction was also flat in April compared to March, $378.5 billion compared to $378.3 billion, a 0.1 percent increase.  March's estimate represents a revision from the original number, $369.8 billion. Spending in April was up 17.2 percent from April 2013 when private residential spending was at an annual rate of $323.0 billion. 

Of the private residential construction put in place in April, $189.6 billion was single family construction and 40.4 billion was multi-family compared to $187.1 billion and $39.3 billion in March, increases of 1.3 and 2.7 percent respectively.  Single family construction was up 14.5 percent year-over-year and multifamily increased by 31.2 percent.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, total private construction in April was $55.8 billion and residential construction $30.9 billion.  Year to date numbers for private and residential construction were $202.4 billion and $107.2 billion, up 13.0 and 18.9 percent respectively from the same period in 2013.

Total publicly funded construction was at a seasonally adjusted rate of $267.0 billion, up 1.2 percent from the previous year.  Residential construction was at a rate of $4.4 billion, down 29.3 percent from April 2013.