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 January 2018 at 54.7 points. All regions and sectors remained above 50 as well, except the Northeast at 47.3.
In February 2018, the HMI stabilized at 72 with a slight decrease in current sales. However, builders' confidence is up for future sales and traffic remained stable.
Construction Update
In January 2018, housing permits reflected an annual rate of 1.4M, 7.4% above its year-ago rate with both Single Family and Multi-Family permits showing similar year-over-year growth rate.
Housing starts in January 2018 were 7.3% above their year-ago rate. Single Family was up 3.7% at 877K starts, and Multi-Family was up 6.7% at 449K starts.
593K new Single Family homes were sold in January 2018, 1.0% below its the year-ago rate.
Economic Update
The annualized value of Construction Put-in-Place was $1.26T in January 2018, 3.2% above its year ago activity.
The second estimate of real GDP growth for Q4 2017 was 2.5%, a slight decline from 3.2% growth seen in third quarter.
