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Construction spending perks up

On a month-to-month basis, total residential spending increased 1.78 percent from December and rose 6.73 percent above the level seen in January 2011.

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This chart shows the value of total private residential construction put in place since 2004. Since the housing market bottomed out in 2008 and 2009, numbers have been recovering slowly.

Today, the U.S. Census Bureau released their latest read of construction spending showing improvement from near-cycle low levels of spending in January for residential construction while indicating a slight pullback for total non-residential spending.

On a month-to-month basis, total residential spending increased 1.78% from December and rose 6.73% above the level seen in January 2011 while remaining a whopping 62.50% below the peak level seen in 2006.

Single family construction spending increased 2.46% since December and rose 5.48% since January 2011 but remained a whopping 75.78% below it's peak in 2006.

Non-residential construction spending declined 1.54% since December but climbed a whopping 16.60% above the level seen in January 2011 but remained a whopping 33.14% below the peak level reached in October 2008.

The following charts (click for larger dynamic versions) show private residential construction spending, private residential single family construction spending and private non-residential construction spending broken out and plotted since 1993 along with the year-over-year, month-to-month and peak percent change to each since 1994 and 2000 – 2005.

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