Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Construction Spending Drops .2% in November

I made a mistake with the original post. While October numbers did decrease 1%, today's release was the November number. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Total construction spending dropped .2% in November.

Residential spending was a big part of the reason for the drop,, as it decreased 1.63%.

Total public construction increased slightly. Remember the last Congress did not pass a final budget resolution. So this number might get a nice injection of public funds when a final budget resolution is passed. Non-residential construction increased 1.43% Most nonresidential subareas (lodging, commercial, power etc...) saw increased. Remember that nonresidential is slightly more than half the size of residential, so nonresidential will really have to pick-up the pace to absorb the decrease in residential construction.

Residential construction has decreased continually since July. It has dropped 6% since than. Total nonresidential construction has increased 4.46% since July.