Eye On Housing
Despite two consecutive monthly declines, the value of construction spending remains higher than levels recorded a year ago.
For the month of June, Census data indicate that the total value of private residential construction spending (put-in-place) declined 0.3% from May to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of $356 billion. Single-family spending was down in June by 1.4%, to a $184 billion rate. In contrast, multifamily spending was up 2.5% to a $41.8 billion pace, and improvement spending increased 0.4% to $130 billion.
The monthly declines reflect a slowing in housing construction that occurred at the end of 2013. For example, the pace of single-family construction starts was down in both December 2013 and January 2014.
Nonetheless, on a year-over-year basis, total private residential construction spending is up 7.4% from June 2013. For single-family spending, construction spending has increased 8.5%. For multifamily, the increase is 33.2%. Only improvement-related spending is down on an annual basis (-0.2%) due in part to 2013 declines in the volumes of existing home sales.
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