Look for spending on public infrastructure and increased demand for single-family housing to drive growth in the construction market over the next two years. In his presentation “In the Eye of the Beholder” at the 2017 Dodge Construction Outlook conference in Washington, D.C., Cristian deRitis, senior director, Moody’s Analytics, said bipartisan support for legislation to support infrastructure spending on the federal level will give a boost to the construction market in the short-term. DeRitis said spending on infrastructure as a percent of U.S. GDP is the lowest since the 1950s.
He is also very bullish on single-family housing, and said the demographic trends and pent-up demand for housing because of supply constraints should push single-family housing well past its current annual rate of 800,000 to over 1 million starts per year, a level the market hasn’t seen since before the Great Recession. DeRitis also said a lack of qualified electrical contractors, plumbers and other workers is responsible for supply constraints.