Pencils down/Some company comments/Other

Pencils down on new building. The US Architecture Billings Index for September fell to 44.8 from 48.1 in August with declines seen in all four categories of Commercial/Industrial, Institutional, Mixed Practice and Multifamily Residential. With respect to the last one, multifamily, its sector index fell to 43.5 with 50 being the breakeven being expansion and contraction. I'll say again, we do need to absorb a lot of multi family construction currently in place but after that there won't be much for a few years after. 

The chief economist there said "The September ABI score reflects a marked downturn in business conditions at architecture firms, with the sharpest decline observed since the peak of the pandemic. While more firms are reporting a decrease in billings, the report also shows the hesitance among clients to commit to new projects with a slump in newly signed design contracts. As a result, backlogs at architecture firms fell to 6.5 months on average in the third quarter, their lowest level since the fourth quarter of 2021."

Bottom line, higher rates continue to bite and it won't stop in the coming years if rates stay high for a while which they will I believe.