Brickonomics

Latest official figures reveal extent of the house building challenge

The release of the first quarter 2009 house building figures for England will most likely provide a bit of everything for commentators, pundits and truth spinners. Chances are there are reasons to be more cheerful and reasons to be more...

Posted by Brian on May 21, 2009 10:58 AM

Construction collapse was faster than first thought, say ONS statisticians

Construction output fell a further 2.4% in the first quarter of this year, according to estimates plugged into the official data used to calculate the UK gross domestic product. The figures for total output of the UK economy in the...

Posted by Brian on April 24, 2009 10:47 AM

Are construction's vital job statistics wrong?

Following the release of numbers suggesting construction jobs increased by 47,000 over 2008 I asked for clarification from the statisticians. To my mind and in the view of anyone in the industry I have spoken to these figures were wildly...

Posted by Brian on March 20, 2009 10:06 AM

I don't believe the construction jobs figures...do you?

Many thanks to Jonathan for commenting below on my thoughts on the jobs figures released this morning. He comes from a recruitment background, so sees the situation first hand, and he seems as puzzled as I do over the official...

Posted by Brian on March 18, 2009 9:05 PM

Did monthly new orders really hit an all time record low in November 2008?

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...

Posted by Brian on January 16, 2009 10:01 AM

Housing figures underline the haemorrhaging of construction workload

The latest starts figures appear to support the view that house building will drop by about a half next year as current projects completed and few if any new sites are opened. That would mean a loss of about £10...

Posted by Brian on November 21, 2008 2:48 PM

House building in the history books

The surveyors' body RICS seems pretty convinced that annual rate of house building in England will fall below 100,000, unless of course something dramatic happens to pick the market up - what who knows? This had me wondering just how...

Posted by Brian on October 6, 2008 12:30 PM

A tale of two statistics and why accuracy isn't about decimal places

I received an email late last night suggesting that I might like to blog on the sudden pulling of the property transaction figures - that is the recently introduced dataset that measures residential sales over £40,000. I lead a thrill...

Posted by Brian on August 21, 2008 4:39 PM