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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Private residential construction in the United States ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of US$882.3 billion in August 2026, according to the Census Bureau's Monthly Construction Spending report, published on Thursday 1 October. That is 1.1% more than the revised July figure of US$872.7 billion, and 4.8% less than in August 2025.
The two numbers point in different directions, and both are true. Home building spent a little more in August than in July, and clearly less than a year earlier. The detail of the release shows where the monthly gain came from, and it is not mainly from new houses or new apartment buildings.
U.S. Census Bureau, Monthly Construction Spending, August 2026 (release CB26-158, 1 October 2026). Preliminary, seasonally adjusted annual rates.
What the Census Bureau published
The release, numbered CB26-158, came out at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time on 1 October and covers August 2026. Its figures are preliminary, and they come with a revision of the month before.
Across every kind of building work, public and private, the Census Bureau puts total construction spending at an annual rate of US$2,203.1 billion in August. That is 0.9% above the revised July estimate of US$2,184.5 billion, a difference of US$18.6 billion. It is 1.7% below the US$2,242.0 billion of August 2025.
The total splits into two blocks. Private construction stood at US$1,655.3 billion, up 1.1% from a revised US$1,637.7 billion in July and down 3.1% from US$1,707.4 billion a year earlier. Public construction stood at US$547.8 billion, up 0.2% from US$546.8 billion in July and up 2.5% from US$534.6 billion in August 2025.
Private construction is itself split between homes and everything else. The residential part, US$882.3 billion, is the larger one: it is about 53% of private spending and about 40% of all construction spending in the country. Private nonresidential construction came to US$773.0 billion, up 1.0% from a revised US$765.0 billion in July and down 1.0% over the year.
Related readAustralia's home starts rise 7.0% in the June quarter, ABS data showsThe table sets the lines of the release side by side.
| Line | August 2026 | From July | From August 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total construction | 2,203.1 | +0.9% | -1.7% |
| Private construction | 1,655.3 | +1.1% | -3.1% |
| Private residential | 882.3 | +1.1% | -4.8% |
| New single-family | 403.3 | +0.2% | -3.5% |
| New multifamily | 115.8 | +0.2% | -0.6% |
| Private nonresidential | 773.0 | +1.0% | -1.0% |
| Public construction | 547.8 | +0.2% | +2.5% |
U.S. Census Bureau, Monthly Construction Spending, August 2026, published 1 October 2026. July figures are revised; August figures are preliminary.
Inside the residential line
Two lines of the release describe the building of new homes, and both barely moved.
Spending on new single-family homes ran at an annual rate of US$403,333 million in August, against US$402,707 million in July. The rise is US$626 million, or 0.2%. Compared with the US$418,129 million of August 2025, the line is down 3.5%, which is about US$14.8 billion less at an annual rate.
Spending on new multifamily buildings ran at US$115,756 million, against US$115,537 million in July: US$219 million more, also a 0.2% rise. Over the year it is down 0.6% from US$116,466 million. Of the two, apartment construction is the one that has held closer to its level of a year ago.
Added together, new single-family and new multifamily construction come to US$519,089 million, about US$519.1 billion. Set against the US$882.3 billion of the whole residential line, that leaves about US$363.2 billion of private residential spending that is neither of the two. The same subtraction for July, US$872.7 billion less US$518.2 billion, leaves about US$354.5 billion.
This is where the month's gain sits. Private residential spending rose by US$9.6 billion between July and August. New single-family and new multifamily building together account for US$845 million of that. The remaining US$8.8 billion or so, roughly nine-tenths of the increase, came from the rest of the residential line. These remainders are computed here from the bureau's rounded totals, so they are approximate, but the order of magnitude is not in doubt: the headline rise of 1.1% does not describe a 1.1% rise in the building of new homes. On the bureau's own lines, that rise was 0.2%.
Related readAustralia's Housing Accord at two years: 124,000 homes behind paceA monthly gain inside a weaker year
Every private line in the release is lower than it was twelve months earlier. Private construction as a whole is down 3.1%, private residential down 4.8%, new single-family down 3.5%, new multifamily down 0.6% and private nonresidential down 1.0%. Residential building has fallen further than the rest of the private sector.
Public construction is the exception. At US$547.8 billion it is 2.5% above August 2025, a gain of US$13.2 billion at an annual rate. The release gives two of its components: highway and street work at US$150.6 billion and educational building at US$113.1 billion, each up 0.1% on the month. That public gain is not enough to offset the private decline of US$52.1 billion over the same twelve months, which is why total spending is US$38.9 billion lower than a year ago.
The bureau also adds up the year so far. Construction spending in the first eight months of 2026 amounted to US$1,450.4 billion, 3.1% below the US$1,496.6 billion of the same period in 2025. That is US$46.2 billion less spending between January and August than a year earlier.
Seen this way, August is a month of recovery inside a year that remains below the last one. Total spending rose by US$18.6 billion at an annual rate between July and August. Of that, US$17.6 billion came from the private side, split between US$9.6 billion in residential and US$8.0 billion in nonresidential, and US$1.0 billion from the public side.
How to read the monthly figures
Three features of this release matter for anyone quoting it.
The first is the unit. The figures are seasonally adjusted annual rates. A monthly amount is corrected for the usual seasonal pattern of building work, then expressed as what a full year would total at that month's pace. Nobody spent US$882.3 billion on homes in August; the country spent at a pace that would reach that sum over twelve months.
Related readAustralia: KPMG says new-build spending up 20%, rebuilds down 32%The second is that the numbers move after publication. The August estimate is preliminary, and the July figures it is compared with are already revised ones. The same will apply to August when the next report arrives.
The third is the margin the bureau prints beside its percentage changes, which is easy to skip and changes the reading of several lines.
Some of August's monthly changes are smaller than their own margin
The Census Bureau gives the 0.9% rise in total spending with a margin of plus or minus 1.0%, the 1.1% rise in private residential with plus or minus 1.3%, and the 0.2% rise in public construction with plus or minus 2.0%. In each case the range includes zero. The 1.1% rise in private construction, at plus or minus 0.5%, does not.
The yearly comparisons stand on firmer ground. The 1.7% fall in total spending from August 2025 carries a margin of plus or minus 1.5%, and the 3.1% fall for the first eight months a margin of plus or minus 1.0%. Both declines are larger than their margins. In plain terms, the release is more certain that construction spending is lower than a year ago than that it rose in August.
Permits, starts and completions
Spending follows the homes already under way. The pipeline behind it is measured in a separate Census Bureau report, New Residential Construction, whose August 2026 edition was published on 17 September, two weeks before the spending figures.
U.S. Census Bureau, New Residential Construction, August 2026, published 17 September 2026.
All three measures fell between July and August. Building permits ran at an annual rate of 1,394,000, down 2.7% from 1,433,000 in July. Housing starts ran at 1,275,000, down 2.6% from 1,309,000. Completions fell the most, by 11.9%, to 1,128,000.
Over twelve months the three diverge. Permits were 3.5% higher than in August 2025. Starts were 1.2% lower. Completions were 27.1% lower, by far the largest move in either report.
Set beside the spending release, the picture is consistent on one point. Starts are slightly below their level of a year ago, and so is the money spent on new single-family and new multifamily building. Permits are the one forward-looking figure that stands above August 2025. A permit is an authorisation and a start is the beginning of work, so the two do not have to move together from one month to the next, and in August both declined.
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Two later publications add to the August picture, and both come from trade press rather than from the Census Bureau.
HousingWire, a housing trade publication, reported on 2 October the construction lines of the Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report for September 2026. Construction as a whole added 11,000 jobs in the month. Inside that total, residential building added 3,000 jobs while residential specialty trade contractors lost 7,900. Nonresidential specialty trade contractors added 12,300. On those figures the two residential lines together shed 4,900 jobs in September, while nonresidential specialty trades alone added more than the sector's net gain. The jobs report covers September and the spending report August, so the two do not describe the same month.
On price, Real Estate News, another trade publication, reported on 8 October a finding from John Burns Research & Consulting: new homes are now 2% cheaper than existing homes. The publication attributes the figure to a post published the same day by John Burns, the firm's chief executive, who described it as the first such gap in 52 years. It is one firm's measure, not an official statistic, and the Census Bureau's spending release says nothing about prices.
For agents and brokers who work with builders, the releases together describe a sector that is still building at a pace close to last year's, with single-family spending 3.5% lower and multifamily spending 0.6% lower, and with fewer homes reaching completion than a year ago. What that means for a given metropolitan area depends on local figures that none of these national reports contain.
What comes next
The Census Bureau has scheduled its next Monthly Construction Spending report for Monday 2 November 2026. It will give the first estimate for September and revise the August figures published on 1 October.
Two things in that report bear directly on this one. The first is whether the 1.1% rise in private residential spending survives revision, given that its margin is plus or minus 1.3%. The second is the split inside the residential line: whether new single-family spending, at US$403,333 million in August, and new multifamily spending, at US$115,756 million, move by more than the 0.2% each recorded this time. Until then, the August figures stand as published: US$2,203.1 billion in total, US$882.3 billion of it in private homes.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
