The total value of construction put in place rose 0.5% in March for the second month. Consensus expectations had been for a 0.3% gain.

Private residential building activity rose 0.3% following an upwardly revised 1.1% increase in February. The value of new single family building added 0.5% (13.2% y/y) to increases during the prior three months which ranged between 1.0% & 2.0%.

Nonresidential building recovered most of the prior month's decline as office building again was strong and rose 2.6% (5.6% y/y). Manufacturing building surged 11.3% (38.1% y/y) following two months of decline.

Public construction rose 0.3% following a downwardly revised gain in February. Spending on highways & streets, nearly one third of the value of public construction spending, slipped 0.4% (+2.1% y/y) following strong gains during the prior five months.

These more detailed categories represent the Census Bureau’s 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.