Construction Spending Up Slightly in June

Construction spending missed forecasts, but was able to remain positive in June, according to the latest CB construction spending report… (Census Bureau)

  • M-O-M: Total construction spending increased 0.1% in June to $1.5 trillion. Forecasts for spending were slightly more positive at 0.5%.
  • Y-O-Y: The June figure still benefiting from the base effect was up 8.2% above the June 2020 estimate.

Private construction was a little better for the month up 0.4%, but the category that did the best was residential specifically single-family housing…

  • Private residential construction was up 1.1% in June to 763 billion and was up 29.3% for the year
  • Single-family construction had the best month with a 1.8% jump compared to May and was up a whopping 51.9% when coamopred to the same time last year.

REVERSAL OF FORTUNE: Public construction did not have a good June falling 1.2% from May and was down 7.5% when compared to the same time last year.

Single-family housing construction is up almost 10% from January which is great, but new supply is still not keeping up with demand. The slowing down that some have reported in the housing market is more a result of demand dropping off than supply catching up. Hopefully, as some of the inflationary pressures ease and commodity prices begin to fall this will help incentivize builders to build to pick up the pace and provide the much-needed supply that the market is demanding.