Construction Spending Dips but Multi-Family Stays Strong

Overall construction spending rose 0.3 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.14 trillion compared to $1.13 trillion in February.  The Census Bureau said this is 8.0 percent higher than spending in March 2015.  On a year-to-date basis through the end of March there has been $240.4 billion in construction put in place in the U.S., 9.1 percent more than at the same point in 2015.

Private construction expenditures in March were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $842.3 billion, up 1.1 percent from the previous month and an 8.5 percent increase compared to a year earlier.  More than half of that annual rate is coming from the residential construction industry were spending increased 1.6 percent from February to an annual pace of $435.5 billion and was up 7.8 percent from a year earlier. 

Single family construction was unchanged from the previous month at 236.27 billion but that was still a 13.4 percent gain from March 2015.  Multi-family construction, at $64.43 billion represented a 5.6 percent month-over-month increase and 34.5 percent annual growth.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis residential spending rose from $28.49 billion in February to $33.97 billion in March with the single family portion rising to $18.35 billion from $16.63 billion.  Year-to-date residential spending is up 7.5 percent with single-family increasing by 11.2 percent and multi-family by 30.9 percent.

Public sector expenditures were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $295.2 billion, down 1.9 percent from February but 6.7 percent higher than during the same period in 2015.  Residential spending in the public domain decreased by 2.5 percent for the month and 1.2 percent for the year to an annual rate of 6.29 billion.