Every two weeks, we prepare a report focused on understanding market intelligence and analyzing construction industry data and trends.
This in-depth report is developed primarily for internal distribution, but because we want to keep construction professionals like you informed about the industry, we make this report available to anyone who's interested in reading it.
What's New In This Report?
Highlights
The ABI remained above 50 (neutral) in November 2018 at 54.7 points. Most of the regions and sectors remained above 50, with the Northeast region and Commercial/Industrial sector in the lead.
In December 2018, the Housing Market Index (HMI) was at 56 with decreased performance in the Current, Future and Traffic components of the index.
Construction Update
In November 2018, housing permits reflected an annual rate of 1.33M, 0.4% up from its year-ago rate with increases in Multi-family permits.
Housing starts in November 2018 were 3.6% below their year-ago rate. Single-Family was down annually by 13.1% at 824K starts, while Multi-Family was up 21.7% at 432K starts.
The ABC Construction Confidence Index reports that the majority of Non Residential contractors are confident about sales growth, profit and staffing levels heading into 2019.
Economic Update
The Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) reported an 8.4% decrease from the previous quarter in their Construction Backlog Indicator (CBI) to 9.0 months of backlog in Q3 2018.
The third estimate of real GDP growth for Q3 2018 was 3.4%, a decrease from the previous quarter's estimate of 4.2%.
