24 Sep Construction Spending Up for Multifamily Residential

According to EyeOnHousing.org and the latest Census, there are significant gains in single-family and multifamily residential construction spending from just a year ago.  In fact, multifamily construction spending increased 38.4%.

While the home improvement component of residential construction spending is down 2.2% from the past year, all three categories of residential construction spending increased from the prior month.

Increased spending coincides with the recent rise in builder sentiment, which rose another two points in August to 55, according to the NAHB, that goes on to state:

Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for 30 years, the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index gauges builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as “good,” “fair” or “poor.” The survey also asks builders to rate traffic of prospective buyers as “high to very high,” “average” or “low to very low.” Scores from each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor.

All three HMI components posted gains in August. The indices gauging current sales conditions and expectations for future sales each rose two points to 58 and 65, respectively. The index gauging traffic of prospective buyers increased three points to 42.

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