December construction spending fell 1.1 percent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. construction spending fell a sharper-than-expected 1.1 percent in December, led by a decline in private home construction as the housing market continued its slide, government data on Friday showed.
December's decline to a $1.140 trillion seasonally adjusted annual rate, its lowest since $1.133 trillion in July 2005, came after a revised 0.4 percent decline in November that was first reported as a gain of 0.1 percent.
Analysts polled by Reuters ahead of the report were expecting construction spending to fall 0.5 percent.
For all of last year, construction spending was down a record 2.6 percent from the year before for a total of $1.161 trillion.
Spending on private home projects fell 2.8 percent in December to a $462.0 billion rate, the 22nd consecutive monthly decrease since a peak in February 2006.
Total private construction was off 1 percent while public construction was down 1.5 percent. The only major sector to increase was private nonresidential construction, rising by 1.3 percent.
Federal construction was down 1.3 percent to $20.4 billion, while state and local construction was off 1.5 percent to $277 billion.
(Reporting by Patrick Rucker; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
