By Jann Swanson | Mortgage News Daily
Construction spending had been expected to recover from the 0.2 percent loss it suffered in December. Analysts polled by Econoday were looking for an increase of 0.2 to 0.8 percent, with a consensus of a half-point gain. Instead total January construction expenditures fell to $1.18 trillion on a seasonally adjusted annual basis from a revised December estimate of $1.19 trillion (down from $1.2 trillion), a decrease of 1.0 percent. The January number did outpace the annual rate of $1.15 trillion from January 2016 by 3.1 percent. On an unadjusted basis, total spending in January was $81.32 billion, down from $91.53 billion in December.
