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?
Highlights
The ABI remained above 50 (neutral) in May 2018 at 52.8 points. All regions and sectors remained above 50, with South and Institutional Sector in the lead.
In June 2018, the HMI slightly decreased to 68 with moderate decreases in all of its three components: Current Sales, Future Sales and Traffic.
Construction Update
In May 2018, housing permits reflected an annual rate of 1.3M, a 8.0% increase from its year-ago rate with both Single Family and Multi-Family permits showing yearly increases.
Housing starts in May 2018 were 20.3% above their year-ago rate. Single Family was up 18.3% at 936K starts, and Multi-Family was up 25.1% at 414K starts.
JCHS released the State of the Nation's Housing 2018 Report detailing the impacts of affordability, immigration and millennial demographic on new construction growth.
Economic Update
The Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) reported a -9.0% decrease from the previous quarter in their Construction Backlog Indicator (CBI) to 8.8 months of backlog in Q1 2018.
CPI-U, which measures inflation increased by 0.2% in May 2018, following 0.2% in April.
