Higher and Higher…

The housing market boom is not quite over, it seems:

Construction spending hits new record

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. construction spending jumped a surprisingly large 0.5 percent to a record high in March as home building also hit record levels, a government report showed Monday.

Construction outlays in March climbed to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.052 trillion from a revised $1.047 trillion in February, the Commerce Department said. Wall Street analysts polled by Briefing.com had expected a 0.3 percent gain.

Total private construction rose 0.5 percent to $816 billion from $811 billion the previous month while private residential construction climbed 0.3 percent to $585 billion from a revised $584 billion in February. Both figures were fresh record highs.

Construction spending has been toppling records every month since February 2004 while residential outlays have been hitting new monthly highs since November last year on persistently low mortgage lending rates.

Month by month, the non-service portion of the US economy has slowly been evolving from a goods-producing economy into a house-producing economy…

Kash