[1]U.S. construction spending has been on the positive side for a year and a half—that is until now.
Spending in the construction sector dipped 0.4 percent in November 2015 to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,122.5 billion, according a release from the U.S. Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce [2]on Monday morning.
However, the November 2015 figure is up 10.5 percent year-over-year from November 2014's estimate of $1,016.1 billion.
This decline marks the first and largest decrease in construction spending since June 2014, according to the Bureau.
The data shows that October's construction spending estimate total was revised to $1,127.0 billion. In addition, for the first 11 months of 2015, construction spending amounted to $1,011.9 billion, 10.7 percent above the $913.9 billion for the same period in 2014.
Private construction as a whole reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $828.2 billion, down 0.2 percent from the revised October estimate of $829.7 billion.
The Census Bureau's data found that residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $427.9 billion in November, up 0.3 percent from the revised October estimate of $426.8 billion.
New single family construction spending totaled $226.7 billion in November, up from October's total of $225.3 billion.
Just last month the Bureau reported that construction spending in the U.S. rose to the highest level since December 2007 [3]in October 2015, when the recession had just began.
The U.S. Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced then that cconstruction spending rose 1.0 percent in October [2] from the previous month's revised estimate of $1,096.6 billion to reach an eight-year high of $1,107.4 billion. According to the report, construction spending in October is up 13.0 percent from last October's estimate of $979.6 billion.
Recent reports have shown that increasing demand and low inventory levels are fueling home prices and are likely the driving factor of the uptick in construction spending.
Click here [2] to view the full report.