Brickonomics

The latest survey of local builders by their trade body FMB paints a grim picture with workload, inquiries and employment plunging. This throws into question how focused the Government is on saving jobs in the construction industry. If saving jobs is top of the agenda it should think a lot more about small refurbishment projects than the eye-catching mega civils projects. Not that it should ignore the need for massive investment in the infrastructure. In board terms the repair, maintenance…

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I have been seeing a lot of “worst ever” and “worst since at least” stories about the November new orders figures. I am conscious that so many statistics are being thrown around at the moment that it is confusing. And there is enough distress out there as it is. So I thought it may be useful to clarify as best I can how the November 2008 new orders figure ranks in the history of duff figures in the series. The…

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The latest figures for new orders appear to have taken a turn for the even worse in November after already having fallen off a cliff in May last year. The 12 month rolling total of orders won in volume terms dropped rapidly in November to its lowest level for more than four years. And you have to go back to September 1995 to find a period of six months when there was less work won by contractors. In cash terms…

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With the release of the heavily downgraded forecast from the Construction Products Association released this morning I was keen to see how the forecasters at Experian saw future workload in the industry this time around. The answer is that they are much more pessimistic about prospects this year than they were last autumn, predicting a fall of 6.7% for 2009. This compares with a fall of 3.1% when they previously forecast. Put another way the industry will be doing about…

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The rapid deterioration in confidence in the construction industry is amply illustrated by the latest prognostication of the Construction Products Association forecasters. The industry trade body has massively downgraded its expectations for construction output over the next six years, despite pepping up the figures for projected spending by the public sector. It now sees construction workload collapsing faster than at any time since the 1980s. Its forecasters now think the recession will be longer and about twice as deep as…

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An article on CNN money caught my eye. It seems that homes in areas of the US hardest hit by foreclosures (repossession) are being dumped at throw away prices. At these prices you could practically buy up a neighbourhood for what it used to cost to buy a half decent home in the States. Now I do recall when the US housing market collapse started, people arguing that a house price crash wouldn’t happen here…

A press release from the property website Rightmove that dropped into my inbox this morning caught my eye. Of course it was promoting its wares – that’s fair enough. But what I found interesting was the interpretation Rightmove has put on the fact that record numbers of people logged on to the website and sent emails to estate agents over the festive period. Apparently, “over a million visits were made to the website both on Christmas day and New Years…

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2008 will go into the record books as the year house prices fell at their fastest rate, with prices dropping over the year at more that double the pace of the previous record fall in 1992. The Nationwide data out today puts the annual rate of collapse in prices for 2008 at 15.9% compared with 6.3% in 1992. The Halifax data released at the start of the month puts houses down 18.9% on the year (if you take out the…

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Happy New Year, or is it? The first piece of hard data on performance of the construction industry we get and it is a “new” record low for the Purchasing Managers’ Index compiled for the buyers’ body CIPS. The overall PMI measure for construction in December came in at 29.3 against a no change mark of 50. That is a pretty gloomy level and well below the previous worst in November of 31.8.