By Rebekah Morris for Arizona Builder’s Exchange
By many business measures, 2018 was a great year. The Arizona construction market certainly saw shimmering doodads and shiny whatchamacallits at every turn. While we’ll go into much greater depth — with targeted data and detailed analysis — at our Construction Activity Forecast event next Thursday, January 10th, here are some of the highlights and our thoughts on the coming year.
2018 Looks Good on you!
Last year, AZBEX research staff expected total market activity to rise from 2017’s estimated $10.1B annual statewide level to nearly $13B, a spike of nearly 30 percent year over year. Reality was not too far off: 2017 actual construction activity was revised upward, coming in higher than we had estimated, at a little more than $11B, and when the dust settles on 2018 reports, actual activity is expected to come in at a healthy $13B, growing at a rate of more than 17 percent year over year. The data we find most objective and useful for this metric is from the Department of Revenue, the taxable sales for Contracting is the truest measure of total construction activity in the state we can find.
