Posted on 04/03/2011 12:07:19 PM PDT by zwerni
February Construction Activity Drops 1.4%, Lowest in More Than a Decade 04/01/2011 Associated Press/AP Online
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
WASHINGTON - Builders started work on fewer homes, apartments and government projects in February, pushing construction activity down to the lowest level in more than a decade.
Construction spending tumbled for a third straight month, dropping 1.4 percent in February, the Commerce Department said Friday. The weakness pushed total activity down to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $760.6 billion, the smallest total since October 1999. That was below the previous recession low set back in August.
(Excerpt) Read more at enr.construction.com ...
remember it all starts in construction... gotta love this “recovery”
But there’s lots of 5 buck/hr. burger flippers being hired across the nation. That’s why the employment numbers are “improving”.
Government spending skyrocketed.
Nobody is going to lift a finger to put this economy on the right track until we have a leader and financial confidence is back.
What jobs did all the construction workers get in the Obama recovery?
I am sure that has to be a coincidence, right?
How big of a sarcasm mark should I put on this?
The list, ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
With the ridiculously high levels of housing inventory on the market, I can’t see construction of new homes coming back for years.
We are in a boom we added a few thousands jobs ( 9.5 Million short of 2008).
This doesn't fit the Media Mantra Obama saved us.
That’s certainly not the case here. We’ve have a 25% population explosion so it’s no wonder construction is and has been booming through all the housing crisis.
But...but...the MSM told me that the “recovery” was in “full swing.”
“remember it all starts in construction...”
Not this time. We already did enough construction to last us for the next 10 to 20 years (both residential and commercial). That was the ‘gift’ of artificially low interest rates.
So forget construction...we’ll have to find a different way to recover.
...especially when you factor in demographics. Baby-boomers are starting to sell their houses and downsize and this trend will continue another 15 - 20. Who will buy their houses? Many of the young people graduating today will have love-paying jobs that will not let them afford to buy a house. The fundamentals are not good.
LLS
Cold month too, can’t factor out the weather when construction is topic
I was always told construction is the last to go and the last to come back...
Any way, it’s still bad news considering I’m in construction.
It certainly hasn’t been the same since late 2008; it was starting to slow in the spring of that same year.
I recently when to a dinner for fellow real estaters and investors. One of the guys there is a very sharp facts and figures person. He told me that his research showed that on top of the Baby Boomer problem you cited, the new generation of home buyers is not there. The mellennials are are super conservative financially. They are scared to death to get involved with a mortgage and house because they have seen their parents struggle through this economy. They will either rent for life or they will live with their parents as long as possible. The biggest hit to the market will be to the McMansions. How can you move up if you can’t sell your existing house to the new generation? Plus no one is going to buy something big as expenses keep going up and there is no bright economic future.
It seemed like a good idea in 2007.
“Any way, it’s still bad news considering I’m in construction.”
I feel for you. We’re just overbuilt because of STUPID policies designed to mask what should have been a slowdown. If I had to guess, between room-additions and new housing, we probably increased the number of square feet of housing stock by 50% in the past 10 years, whereas our population increased by maybe 11%. Same for commercial.
Simply not smart. It causes HUGE DISTORTIONS in the economy, pulls illegals in like crazy, causes us to import Chinese drywall, huge spikes in concrete, wood, and steel prices. And it creates huge numbers of new (legal) workers in the business that will be (and have been) thrown out of work once the binge ends.
A nice little ramp up would have been much better...with the rest of our growth going into important areas like modernizing factories.
We made a HUGE MESS and the mess is still barely visible. The real mess will be seen when the dollar crashes.
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