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.