Where Are the Various Construction Markets Headed in 2019?

This webinar will cover the state of construction in the US, how different industry segments are faring, and which regions the leading indicators and other metrics are favoring.

The US economy at large can be thought of as a train. The cars represent different pieces of the economy, which move through the various stages of the business cycle – sections of track – at different times.

The US residential housing market often behaves as the locomotive, leading the rest of the US economy. The most devastating example of the housing market foretelling broader pain occurred just a decade ago, as the housing crisis ushered in what we now know as the Great Recession.

Nonresidential construction behaves more like a caboose. Because massive commercial and institutional projects often take years – several months, at a minimum – to complete, they are typically subject to the economic pressures of yesterday, lagging the US economy by more than a year in some cycles. Commercial contractors learned this lesson a decade ago as well. Their extended backlogs carried them well into the Great Recession, but the other shoe – a painful pullback in structure investment that would extend well beyond the recession's official end – eventually dropped.

We know that residential activity is cooling down while nonresidential activity is ramping up; will those trends hold up next year?

Recognizing your business’s current and future position, as well as your customers' position, is the key to prudent decision-making as you sharpen your strategic plans for the coming year. Join us for this month’s ITR webinar and learn how your markets will behave in 2019. Leave with valuable external market insight to inform your plans for handling your workforce, bidding projects, purchasing materials, and hedging away from softening markets!

Connor Lokar
Economist