According to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) analysis of Census Construction Spending, private residential construction spending was reported up 0.6% in August 2023. This makes the fourth consecutive rise since May 2023. Reported is a seasonally adjusted annual pace of $879.9 billion.
The catalyst for the increase is due to the uptick in spending in both single-family and multifamily construction. Single-family spending went up 1.7% in August and multifamily construction spending went up 0.6%. In fact, multifamily construction spending was up 24% higher this August than in August 2022. This is mainly due to the large and increasing demand for rental apartments.
This is great news, but there are still some downfalls. The total private residential construction spending is still lower by 3.1% than it was a year ago. Spending on private nonresidential construction was up 19.7% over a year ago. The annual private nonresidential spending increase was mainly due to higher spending on the class of manufacturing category ($78.7 billion), followed by the power category ($5.53 billion).
