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Economy in Brief
U.S. Housing Affordability Fell Back in February, but Still in Recent Range
The NAR U.S. Fixed Rate Mortgage Housing Affordability Index decreased 7.6% (-1.4% y/y) in February to 173.1...
European New Car Registrations Remarkably Strong Yet Forgettable
Car registrations are not going to be the only statistic that bears these dual and seemingly dueling characteristics...
U.S. Retail Sales Soar in March
Total retail sales including food service and drinking establishments increased 9.8% (27.7% y/y) during March...
U.S. Industrial Production Rebounded in March
Industrial production rebounded in March, rising 1.4% m/m (+1.0% y/y)...
U.S. Home Builder Index Edges Higher in April
The NAHB-Wells Fargo Composite Housing Market Index rose 1.2% to 83 during April...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Tom Moeller June 1, 2015
Momentum in the building sector recovered of late, perhaps helped by better weather. The value of construction put-in-place increased 2.2% during April (4.8% y/y) following a 0.5% March rise, revised from -0.6%. Three-month growth of 14.4% (AR) was the strongest since late-2013. A 0.6% April rise had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey.
Public sector building jumped 3.3% (3.5% y/y) and rose at a 16.6% rate during the last three months. Highway & street construction increased 8.5% (4.6% y/y); office construction rose 6.2% (4.2% y/y) while educational building gained 3.6% (1.6% y/y). Water supply construction improved 1.1% (0.6% y/y) but commercial building fell 8.9% (+12.4% y/y). Power construction gave up 15.0% (-31.3% y/y) while health care building slipped 0.6% (-11.1% y/y).
Building activity in the private sector improved 1.8% (5.3% y/y) and increased at a 13.6% rate during the last three months. Nonresidential building activity jumped 3.1% (13.4% y/y) with strong growth spreading across most sectors. Further improvement was evident in residential construction activity which gained 0.6% (-2.1% y/y). Single-family building strengthened 1.6% (9.2% y/y) and multi-family construction jumped 3.1% (24.6% y/y). Working the other way, however, spending on improvements continued down by 3.0% (-27.0% y/y).
The construction spending figures are in Haver's USECON database and the expectations figure is contained in the AS1REPNA database.
Construction Put in Place (%) | Apr | Mar | Feb | Apr Y/Y | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | 2.2 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 4.8 | 6.1 | 5.7 | 9.2 |
Private | 1.8 | 0.9 | 0.5 | 5.3 | 8.0 | 10.1 | 16.0 |
Residential | 0.6 | -1.0 | 0.2 | -2.1 | 5.1 | 20.4 | 14.4 |
Nonresidential | 3.1 | 2.7 | 0.8 | 13.4 | 11.2 | 0.6 | 17.5 |
Public | 3.3 | -0.4 | 1.0 | 3.5 | 1.5 | -3.5 | -2.8 |