The Census Bureau, still playing catch-up from the partial government shutdown, has released its monthly construction spending report for December 2018.  Expenditures for all types of construction were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.293 trillion during the month, 0.6 percent less than the revised November estimate of $1.301 trillion.  The December figure is 1.6 percent higher than the spending rate in December 2017.

On a non-adjusted basis there was $97.552 billion spent during the month, down from $107.99 billion in November. Total spending for the year was 1.298 trillion compared to $1.246 trillion for all of 2017, an annual gain of 4.1 percent.

The largest gains for the year were in construction to support the water supply, up 17.0 percent, transportation spending with a 15.1 percent change and lodging, up 11.7 percent.

Privately funded spending in December was at an annual rate of $991.171 billion, down 0.6 percent from November's revised $997.078 billion Unadjusted spending was $76.249 billion, down from $82.906 billion in November.  For the entirety of 2018 private spending totaled $995.636 billion, a 3.4 percent gain from 2017.

Private residential spending was down 1.3 percent in December to a seasonally adjusted $536.655 billion, 1.3 percent lower than the previous December.  Single family construction spending fell 3.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis for the month and 5.0 percent year-over-year to $267.440 billion.  Multi-family expenditures increased 3.1 percent and 3.4 percent from the two earlier periods to a seasonally adjusted $65.245 billion annual rate.

On an unadjusted basis private residential spending in December was $36.706 billion compared to a revised $44.175 billion in November.  The 12-month total for 2018 residential spending was $542.279 billion, up 3.3 percent from the previous year.  Single-family construction expenditures were $284.172 across the 12 months, an increase of 5.2 percent for the year.  Multifamily construction totaled $60,353 billion, an annual gain of 0.7 percent.

The annual rate for publicly funded construction of all types was $301.545 billion in December, down 0.6 percent for the month and 4.2 percent year-over-year.  Residential spending decline by 5.1 percent from November and 20.4 percent from December 2018. For the year Public spending was 6.6 percent higher than the previous year and residential spending was down 4.9 percent to $6.710 billion