April shows gain in residential building

Residential building in April showed a moderate gain, helped by upward movement for multifamily housing.

Residential building in April grew 4% to $123.5 billion (annual rate), according to McGraw Hill Construction.  Multifamily housing in April climbed 43%, continuing the up-and-down pattern around a rising trend that has been present since late 2010 and into early 2011.  The largest multifamily project reported as an April start was the $180 million apartment/condominium portion of the $420 million City Center mixed use project in Washington, D.C.  Additional support in April came from numerous projects of more moderate scale, including 15 multifamily projects with a construction start cost in the range of $25 million to $65 million. 

Single family housing in April continued to languish, slipping an additional 4%.  While single family housing seemed to show improvement towards the end of 2010, activity so far in 2011 has generally trended downward.  By region, April revealed this performance for single family housing – the South Central, down 9%; the Northeast, down 7%; the West, down 2%; the South Atlantic, down 1%; and the Midwest, up 3%. 

For more information: http://construction.com/ResourceCenter/forecast/2011/May.asp