Residential Spending Scores Significant Annual Gains

There was a slight increase in total spending on construction in September.  The U.S. Census Bureau says that all construction put in place during the month came to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.220 trillion, 0.3 percent more than spending in August, and 2.0 percent above the rate in September 2016.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, expenditures by both public and private sources was $110.92 billion for the month, and over the first nine months of the year has come to $917.0 billion, 4.3 percent more than spending over the same period in 2016.

Privately funded construction was at a rate of $942.7 billion, an 0.4 percent increase from August and 3.1 percent ahead of the previous September. The strongest sector was transportation spending which posted a 22.0 percent increase year-over-year, followed by single family at 11.9 percent. Manufacturing suffered the greatest decline, down 20.3 percent from August 2016.

Residential spending was flat for the month but is still running well ahead of the 2016 pace, especially that single-family number. Overall residential spending was up 9.6 percent to an annual rate of $515.42 billion, although that was essentially unchanged from the August pace. but 9.6 percent ahead of a year earlier.  Single-family construction was up 0.2 percent month-over-month to a rate of $265.59 billion, but that contributed to the 11.9 percent annual growth.

On an unadjusted basis, residential spending in September, at $46.41 billion, represented more than half of the total $83.57 billion spent on all privately funded construction. Residential spending through August came to $345.71 billion, up 11.7 percent over the same period last year.

Single family construction spending for the month was estimated at an unadjusted $24.73 billion and multi-family at $5.261. Year-to-date spending in the two categories was 8.9 percent and 4.3 percent higher than during the same period in 2016.

Total publicly funded construction was at a rate of $276.8 billion, a 2.6 percent increase from August, but down 1.6 percent year-over-year.  Public spending on residential construction remains inconsequential at just over $6 billion on an annual basis and that number declined by 3.9 percent from last year.