Residential construction starts outpaced commercial starts in South Florida last month, according to a new report from Dodge Data & Analytics.
Overall, spending was up 4 percent in March to $1.06 billion. The amount of nonresidential construction contracts fell 3 percent to $458.7 million, while residential starts increased 10 percent to nearly $600 million.
For the first quarter, construction spending has jumped 50 percent compared to the first quarter of 2017. Again, residential contract volume exceeded commercial with $1.6 billion of commercial contracts – up 41 percent year-over-year – and $2.04 billion of residential spending, which marks a 58 percent increase compared to the same period last year.
Construction costs are expected to continue rising across the U.S. thanks in part to President Trump’s plan to tax overseas metals. Since the announcement in March, steel prices have risen as much as 10 percent nationwide. But the tariffs likely won’t impact South Florida developers due to the region’s strict building code that requires concrete structures to be held together with rebar.