Total private residential construction spending increased 1.3% in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $829.4 billion, according to an NAHB analysis of Census Construction Spending data. The NAHB says total private spending in the industry in January was 13.4% higher than a year ago.
These monthly gains are attributed to the strong growth of spending on single-family construction and improvements, while spending on multifamily construction slipped. Single-family construction spending increased to a $445.1 billion annual pace in January 2022, up by 1.2% over the upwardly revised December estimates. Spending on improvements increase 1.8% in January, after 1.4% up in December. At the same time, multifamily construction spending slipped 0.1%. But it was 4.8% higher than a year ago. Home building is still facing supply chain issues, which means the industry is dealing with rising material costs as well as ongoing labor shortages.
Private nonresidential construction spending edged up to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $497.2 billion in January, a 1.8% increase from the December estimates. And it was 7.3% higher than a year ago. The largest contribution to this month-over-month nonresidential spending increase was made by the class of manufacturing ($7.3 billion), followed by class of power ($2.8 billion), and class of transportation ($0.2 billion).