Increases in Private Residential Spending Reflects Strong Growth

Both strong spending on single-family construction and home improvements helped to increase total private residential construction spending in November, says the National Association of Home Builders. In November, total spending increased 2.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $658.1 billion, according to NAHB’s analysis of Census Construction Spending data. Compared to November 2019, that’s a 16.1% increase. More specifically, single-family construction spending jumped 5.1% in November and remodeling spending saw lesser growth with a 0.2% increase. Increased spending reflects strong builder confidence and readings of single-family housing starts, says NAHB.

Meanwhile, multifamily construction spending stayed flat after reaching a record high in October, and was 15.8% higher since a year ago.

The NAHB construction spending index, which is shown in the graph below (the base is January 2000), illustrates the solid growth in single-family construction and home improvement from the second half of 2019 to February 2020, before the COVID-19 hit the U.S. economy, and the quick rebounds since July 2020. New multifamily construction spending has picked up the pace after a slowdown from the second half of 2019.

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