• Overall activity sets another record. 

• Residential building's surge led by single-family sector.

• Public-sector building strengthens.

Building activity continues to strengthen. The value of construction put-in-place increased 1.7% during January (5.8% y/y) following December's 1.1% gain, revised from 1.0%. A 0.7% January increase had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey.

Private construction increased 1.7% (6.8% y/y) in January following a 1.5% December rise. Residential construction jumped 2.5% (21.0% y/y) as single-family building surged 3.0% (24.2% y/y), the seventh consecutive month of notably strong increase. Home improvement expenditures strengthened 2.3% (17.9% y/y) after rising 1.8%. The value of multi-family construction edged 0.7% higher (16.9% y/y) following a 0.2% rise.

Nonresidential private construction improved 0.4% in January (-10.1% y/y) following six consecutive monthly declines. Transportation building rose 1.0% (-2.7% y/), strong for the fifth straight month. Lodging construction rose 0.7% (-22.7% y/y) while commercial building weakened 1.8% (-8.3% y/y). Manufacturing construction rose 4.9% (-14.7% y/y) as education construction edged 0.4% higher (-15.7% y/y). Office building eased 0.2% (-4.4% y/y) about as it did in December.

Public construction rose 1.7% during January (2.9% y/y) following a 0.1% December uptick. Spending on highways & streets, which makes up nearly one-third of public spending, surged 5.8% (6.5% y/y) and outlays on health care units improved 0.9% (9.1% y/y). Power construction improved 0.2% (-4.0% y/y) while spending on educational buildings was little changed (0.9% y/y).

The construction spending figures, some of which date back to 1946 can be found in Haver's USECON database. The expectations reading is in the AS1REPNA database.