A fresh look at data shaping the construction economy.
Home sales boom in May; personal income, durable goods advance; construction layoffs jump.
Personal income grew 0.3% in May, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported today. Personal consumption expenditures slipped 0.1% after rising 0.6% in April.
Home sales continued at a record or near-record pace in May. On Thursday the government reported that new single-family houses sold at the highest seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) ever, 1.03 million. That was 16% above the May 2001 total and 8% higher than the April 2002 figure, which itself was revised sharply upward from the initial estimate. Census also reported that the number of new houses for sale at the end of May was only 3.8 times the current sales rate, a level low enough to induce considerably more construction.