The total value of construction put in place fell in May for the fourth month this year. The 0.9% decline followed a revised 1.1% drop in April. Consensus expectations had been for a 0.5% increase.

The 2004 increase in total construction spending was revised up to 11.1% from 8.9% as a result of a strengthened gain in residential building to 18.5% from 13.9%.

Since then private residential building activity has fallen sharply, down 4.9% during the last three months. The value of new single family building, however, has continued to rise by 0.5% (7.6% y/y) in May. Building on new multi-family units fell 0.9% (15.0% y/y).

Nonresidential building slipped 1.6% (+5.0% y/y) due to a 1.2% (+2.4% y/y) decline in office building.

Public construction spending rose 1.7% but the steam came out of spending on highways & streets, nearly one third of the value of public construction spending, as y/y growth slowed to 5.4% from the high of 19.7% in February.

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.