Trump’s unexpected election is having little impact on next year’s construction market forecasts: The fundamentals are strong and already in place. The year to watch is 2018.
The ink barely had dried on this year’s batch of construction market forecasts when economists had to take a second look at their numbers to evaluate the impact of Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, which brought with it a Republican-controlled Senate and House. Most economists are holding firm to their initial forecasts, saying it is too early to sort out all the variables.
Dodge Data & Analytics is forecasting construction starts to increase 5.4% in 2017, after seeing growth fall to 1.3% this year. FMI Corp. predicts that construction put-in-place will grow another 3.9% next year, following this year’s 4.9% increase. The Portland Cement Association’s forecast looks for a 3.5% increase in construction put-in-place, a slight boost over the 3.1% growth PCA estimates for this year. The National Association of Home Builders is calling for single-family housing starts to jump 12.3% in 2017 at the same time the multifamily housing starts cool off. The transportation association, ARTBA, expects to see the strong growth in some states canceled out by weakness in others.