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 August 2018 at 54.2 points. Most of the regions and sectors remained above 50, with the South region and Residential sector in the lead.
In September 2018, the HMI stayed at 67 with mixed performance in the Current, Future and Traffic components of the index.
Construction Update
In August 2018, housing permits reflected an annual rate of 1.23M, a 5.5% decrease from its year-ago rate, with Single Family showing yearly increases.
Housing starts in August 2018 were 9.4% above their year-ago rate. Single Family was down annually by 0.2% at 876K starts, while Multi-Family was up 38.1% at 406K starts.
629K new Single Family homes were sold in August 2018, 12.7% above the year-ago rate.
Economic Update
The Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) reported a 12.2% increase from the previous quarter in their Construction Backlog Indicator (CBI) to 9.9 months of backlog in Q2 2018.
The third estimate of real GDP growth for Q2 2018 was 4.2%, a steep increase from the previous quarter's value of 2.2%.
