The Commerce Department said Thursday that private residential construction spending in January reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $253.6 billion, 1.8 percent above the revised December estimate of $249.2 billion. Residential construction spending increased in December, as well.
Overall private construction spending reached an annual rate of $538.7 billion, nearly the same as the revised December estimate of $538.7 billion. And spending on both private and public construction in January reached $827.0 billion, 0.1 percent below the revised December estimate of $827.6 billion. The January figure is 7.1 percent above the January 2011 estimate of $772.0 billion.
"Construction spending appears to be slowly climbing out of a very deep hole," said Steven Wood, an economist at Insight Economics.
