By Jann Swanson | Mortgage News Daily
The construction spending report for March was a bit of a jolt, especially given the reason for the unexpected decline. Some significant softness in private residential spending drove the Census Bureau’s estimated overall spending for the month down 1.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.29 trillion compared to a revised February estimate of $1.31 trillion.
Analysts had expected construction spending to increase only slightly, the range among those polled by Econoday was 0.3 to 0.9 percent with a consensus of 0.5 percent. Econoday said that while the March data was a surprise, it was offset by a heavy upward revision to the February numbers, a 1.0 percent increase from January, rather than the 0.1 percent originally reported.
