The Census Bureau’s report on construction spending said that the value of multifamily residential construction put in place in November was up 0.1 percent from the revised level of the month before. Spending on single-family residential construction was reported to rise 2.9 percent while spending on improvements was down 0.8 percent.
The value of total private residential construction put in place in November 2023 was reported to be $896.7 billion on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis. This figure, which includes spending on both new construction and on improvements, was reported to be up $9.5 billion month-over-month. This is on top of a $2.9 billion upward revision to October’s figure. Residential construction spending in November was reported to be up 3.7 percent year-over-year.
Multifamily construction spending stabilizes
The value of new private construction of multifamily residential buildings put in place in November was reported to be $135.6 billion on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis. This was up $86 million from the revised level for October. However, the October figure was revised lower by $58 million, so the preliminary multifamily construction spending figure reported this month is only $28 million, or 0.02 percent, higher than the preliminary figure for October reported last month. The value of multifamily housing construction put in place in November 2023 was 13.6 percent higher than the level of November 2022.
By comparison, the Census Bureau’s New Residential Construction report said the number of unit completions in November in buildings with 5 or more units rose 26.5 percent from the month before. Unit completions were 9.5 percent higher than their year-earlier level.
Governments were reported to have put $10.6 billion in residential construction in place in November on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis.
The value of new single-family residential construction put in place in November was $422.6 billion on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis. This was up $12.0 billion from the revised (+$1.8 billion) level for October and was up 5.5 percent from the level of November 2022.
The value of improvements to residential buildings put in place in November was reported to be $338.5 billion on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis. This was down $2.6 billion from the revised (+$1.1 billion) level for October and was down $6.8 billion from the year-earlier level. The Census Bureau does not separate out improvements for single-family and multifamily residential buildings.
Charting the data
The following chart shows the value of residential construction put in place each month since January 2012. The chart illustrates that the reported value of new multifamily residential construction put in place has a followed a pattern since 2016 of rising and then remaining at a constant level for several months before rising again. The current plateau is at around $135 billion annualized dollars. This is up from the plateau of around $105 billion dollars that existed from the middle of 2021 to the middle of 2022.
The value of new single-family residential construction put in place experienced its 7th straight monthly rise. The value of improvements to residential buildings put in place has established no clear pattern but can generally be said to be declining slowly, if not smoothly.
The report from the Census Bureau also includes information on spending on other types of construction projects. The full report can be found here.
