new industry report indicates softening of residential construction

Although there is currently more than $852 billion in the national construction pipeline, the residential construction segment today remains less buoyant than it has been in the last two years, says a new report released by the business analysis firm Research and Markets.

The report, Construction in the US-Key Trends and Opportunities to 2023, compiles information from all projects in the pre-planning to execution stages.

But a press release from the Dublin-based Research and Markets also cautions that the report is “relatively skewed towards late stage projects, with 58.7 percent of the pipeline being in projects in the pre-execution and execution stages as of October 2019.”

The report adds that even though the construction industry nationally grew by 2.2 percent last year, compared with 0.4 percent in 2017, the final numbers for this year are expected to come in at around 0.5 percent.

That number, says the press release, is “largely due to a decline in residential investment and heightened policy uncertainty from the recent escalation of the U.S. trade war with China, which is weighing on business sentiment and holding back investment in major construction projects.”

The residential market, comprising a massive 42 percent of the construction industry’s total value, weakened overall in 2018 and “has since struggled to gain traction, with construction put in place contracting by an average of 8.2 percent in the first six months of this year.

Research and Markets is the largest industry market research firm in the world, providing analysis of the automotive, chemicals, energy, and healthcare sectors, among other major industries in the U.S.

By Garry Boulard

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