Every two weeks, Oldcastle Building Solutions Business Intelligence prepares a report focused on understanding and analyzing construction market data and trends.
This in-depth report is developed primarily for internal distribution, but Oldcastle Building Solutions exists to inform construction professionals like you, so we're making this report available for anyone who's interested in reading it.
What's New In This Report?
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HighlightsU.S. homeownership rate in Q4 2016 increased slightly to 63.7% U.S. construction put-in-place up 4.2% annually to $1.18T in December 2016 |
Construction UpdateDecember 2016 housing permits up 0.7% since last year; starts also up 5.7% in year New single-family sales: 536k houses, 0.4% below the December 2015 estimate |
Economic UpdateUnemployment little changed at 4.8% with 227k jobs added in January Advanced estimate of real GDP for Q4 2016 was 1.9% below Q3 3.5% growth |
Key Takeaways
- In Q4 2016, the U.S. homeownership rate increased 0.2% to 63.7%, building on the Q2 increase to 62.9%. The national rate has been relatively flat, near 64%, since 2014; down from the peak of 69.2% in 2004
- Construction put-in-place was $1.18T in December 2016, 4.2% above year ago activity. Gains in private construction activity were offset by contractions in public
- Housing permits were flat in December 2016 at 1.2M, 0.7% above December 2015's rate; gains in single family permits were offset by contractions in multi-family
- Housing starts increased in December 2016 by 5.7% from last year to 1.2M; single family starts were up 3.9% and multi-family starts were up 9.1%
- 536K new single family homes were sold in December 2016, just 0.4% below the December 2015 estimate
- In January 2017, the unemployment rate was relatively unchanged at 4.8%, with 227K non-farm jobs added
- The advanced (first) estimate of Q4 2016 GDP was 1.9%, below the 3.5% growth in Q3. GDP growth for 2016 is estimated at 1.6% overall
