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Economy in Brief
U.S. Housing Affordability Declines Further in June
The NAR Fixed Rate Mortgage Housing Affordability Index fell 3.6% in June...
EMU Output Makes Solid Gain in June
The European Monetary Union posted a 0.7% increase for industrial output in June...
U.S. Producer Prices Fall During July; Core Increase Weakens
The Producer Price Index for Final Demand fell 0.5% during July...
U.S. Unemployment Claims Continue on an Uptrend
Initial claims for unemployment insurance filed in the week ended August 6 rose 14,000 to 262,000...
RICS Survey Points to More U.K. Housing Sector Weakness
The survey of housing market conditions in the U.K. continues to show strength in prices versus weakness...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Tom Moeller April 4, 2005
The total value of construction put in place rose 0.4% in February. Consensus expectations had been for a 0.6% gain. Earlier month's figures were little revised.
Private residential building activity rose 0.7% paced by a 1.4% (13.7% y/y) jump in new single family building.
Nonresidential building slipped 1.2% after the strong gain in January as commercial building fell 3.2% (+7.1% y/y). Office building rose 1.6% (3.6% y/y) but manufacturing building fell 2.4% (+28.5% y/y).
Public construction rose 1.1%. Spending on highways & streets, nearly one third of the value of public construction spending, rose 2.5% (21.4% y/y).
These more detailed categories represent the Census Bureaus reclassification of construction activity into end-use groups. Finer detail is available for many of the categories; for instance, commercial construction is shown for Automotive sales and parking facilities, drugstores, building supply stores, and both commercial warehouses and mini-storage facilities. Note that start dates vary for some seasonally adjusted line items in 2000 and 2002 and that constant-dollar data are no longer computed.
Construction Put-in-place | Feb | Jan | Y/Y | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | 0.4% | 0.6% | 10.0% | 8.9% | 5.1% | 1.5% |
Private | 0.1% | 0.6% | 10.3% | 10.7% | 6.0% | -0.2% |
Residential | 0.7% | 0.3% | 12.1% | 13.9% | 13.1% | 8.4% |
Nonresidential | -1.2% | 1.3% | 6.0% | 3.7% | -7.1% | -12.8% |
Public | 1.1% | 0.7% | 9.0% | 3.3% | 2.6% | 7.0% |