A first glance at figures for private residential construction spending in July 2012 seems discouraging with a decline of 1.6 percent in the past month. However, numbers for separate categories within residential as well as overall comparisons with the same time frame in 2011 paint a much brighter picture. Total residential spending increased nearly 10 percent since July 2011.
For more good news, single-family spending has continually improved over the past four months. From June to July 2012, those numbers grew by 1.5 percent. That same figure also is 19 percent higher than spending in July 2011. Multifamily construction climbed 45 percent over the past year. The only residential figure to drop this month was improvement spending, which fell 5.5 percent since June, although that figure could be revised in the final analysis.
In regard to the growth, Ken Simonson, chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America, says that “construction of new homes, apartments, and most private nonresidential structures appears to be driving gains in construction activity.”
