Peter Miller
Year end 2023 U.S. Census construction data and the traditional building market.
Last month’s Building Tradition podcast interviews with AIA’s chief economist Kermit Baker and NAHB’s economist Danushka Nanayakkara gave us a look ahead at the 2024 state of our industry. Now, the U.S. Census reports year-end 2023 construction spending totals which look better than everyone expected a year ago. (Census)
According to U.S. Census data the total annual value of private construction put in place was up +4.7% year-over-year. Residential construction in 2023 was -5.8% below 2022. Non-residential construction for 2023 was +21.9% above 2022.
What’s not reported in Census figures clearly, is the annual value of construction for restoration/renovation/rehabilitation, an estimated fifty percent of the market, according to Kermit Baker of AIA. What is reported by the U.S. Census year-end 2023 numbers confirms what Dr. Baker told me: the manufacturing building segment is up Y-O-Y 70%; healthcare is up 14.9%; and education is up 13.4%.
NAHB’s economist Danushka Nanayakkara’s forecast for the year-end 2023 reiterates the U.S. Census data which shows a -5.6% decline in the value of residential construction put in place year-over-year. Census does not break out single-family custom housing, but NAHB tells us that it is 20% of the total single-family construction market.
Where does our traditional building market fit in with all of this? We define traditional building as residential, commercial, and institutional work, both restoration/renovation and new period construction (contextual infill and new old houses). We estimate that this work accounts for at least 20% of the total value of construction put in place. This includes the adaptive use of historic buildings, restoration/renovation of existing traditional buildings (typically 1800-1964) and new period homes.
Who works in the traditional building market? You do! Here is a pie chart which shows the composition of the audience our media serves.
What kind of work do you do? All kinds. Here is a pie chart which shows the percentage of the traditional building audience who do this kind of work. Most do more than one kind of building type work.
Traditional building work often requires many hands, from architects and preservation consultants to general contractors and specialty contractors, building artisans and conservators. This is why our audience composition is multi-disciplined.
The traditional building professionals who engage with the TRADITIONAL BUILDING, PERIOD HOMES and the Traditional Building Conference Series media platform (print, digital, social, conference, podcast, online education) are part of a 570,000 constituency. Let’s stay in touch!
Peter H. Miller, Hon. AIA, is the publisher and President of TRADITIONAL BUILDING, PERIOD HOMES and the Traditional Building Conference Series, and podcast host for Building Tradition, Active Interest Media's business to business media platform. AIM also publishes OLD HOUSE JOURNAL; NEW OLD HOUSE; FINE HOMEBUILDING; ARTS and CRAFTS HOMES; TIMBER HOME LIVING; ARTISAN HOMES; FINE GARDENING and HORTICULTURE. The Home Group integrated media portfolio serves over 50 million architects, builders, craftspeople, interior designers, building owners, homeowners and home buyers.
Pete lives in a classic Sears house, a Craftsman-style Four Square built in 1924, which he has lovingly restored over a period of 30 years. Resting on a bluff near the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., just four miles from the White House, Pete’s home is part of the Palisades neighborhood, which used to be a summer retreat for the District’s over-heated denizens.
Before joining Active Interest Media (AIM), Pete co-founded Restore Media in 2000 which was sold to AIM in 2012. Before this, Pete spent 17 years at trade publishing giant Hanley Wood, where he helped launch the Remodeling Show, the first trade conference and exhibition aimed at the business needs and interests of professional remodeling contractors. He was also publisher of Hanley Wood’s Remodeling, Custom Home, and Kitchen and Bath Showroom magazines and was the creator of Remodeling’s Big 50 Conference (now called the Leadership Conference).
Pete participates actively with the American Institute of Architects’ Historic Resources Committee and also serves as President of the Washington Mid Atlantic Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. He is a long-time member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and an enthusiastic advocate for urbanism, the revitalization of historic neighborhoods and the benefits of sustainability, including the adaptive reuse of historic buildings.
