Dive Brief:
- Total construction starts in the U.S. rose 3% in April to an annualized pace of $533.7 billion, while the total for the first third of the year stood at $153.8 billion – right where it was at this time in 2013.
- A 14% rise in nonresidential building helped offset a 1% drop in single-family home building, which made April the sixth month in a row of decline in that sector, an 11% drop in institutional construction and non-building construction slid 14%.
- Looking at the data by region, the Northeast and South Central areas were up from March while the West, South Atlantic and Midwest regions were down.
Dive Insight:
The chief economist for McGraw Hill Construction, Robert A. Murray, said the numbers suggest that weather really was partly to blame for a poor start to 2014, which had been a guess and a hope but lacked data. He also said there seem to be more people in Washington listening to ongoing cries that too-tight credit is keeping the housing recovery from matching its early stride after the recession began to ease.
