2015 was a great year for the construction industry, with the significant trend being growth. Construction put-in-place rose by 8.5% in the second half of the year and residential rose by 5%. While civil construction was down by a couple percentage points, non-residential construction exploded with 22% growth.
Now that 2015 is behind us, it’s time to look ahead at 2016. Is this a time of excitement for an industry continuing to grow or is it time to check our expectations after unsustainable growth? For the answers, we turn to our team's 2016 Construction Forecast Report.
The Forecast for 2016 Is Great
We’ll be the first to remind you to beware the wildly optimistic construction forecast, but things do look very promising for the construction industry in 2016.
Expect to see overall growth of 8% this year, similar to what we expected, and ultimately saw, in 2015. Residential, commercial and institutional segments are all going to continue to grow. Contrary to those who believe multifamily construction will taper off, we expect to see similar growth to last year. Single family is going to explode with 17% growth.
In the non-residential segment, commercial construction is going to have better performance than institutional. However, 2016 should mark the beginning of significant growth for education and healthcare, segments that have been stable or growing very little in the past few years due to uncertainty in government budgeting and policy.
In the non building segment, we expect infrastructure to taper off from 2015’s huge increases. Transportation will continue to grow slightly, unless a new highway bill is approved—which could lead to even greater growth.
Growing Regions
The forecast is very good for the great majority of the country, we expect only a handful of states will see decreases.
Overall, the Southeast and West are going to be the key regions of growth. California, Arizona and Georgia are going to lead the explosion with Sacramento, Providence and San Diego growing by more than 30%!
Growing in 2016
For more, download the complete 2016 construction forecast report today, featuring:
- 2016 construction forecast for the top 50 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs)
- Comparison of construction in 2015-2016, broken down by region and state
- Detailed analysis of each of the construction segments for 2016
- National economic overview, including gross domestic product (GDP), employment and unemployment rates and annual percentage change in CPI for urban consumers
