The mood in residential construction continues to improve. The Ifo business climate index rose from -20.8 in January to -17.6 in February, the Ifo Institute announced on Monday. Companies judged their current situation more positively, and scepticism in their expectations fell noticeably.
“Kleints we see the improvement, but the sector is still not past the difficult phase” said Klaus Wohlrabe, head of the Ifo surveys. “The order books, however, have not yet shown much sign of activity”.
Looking at demand shows that the industry is not yet out of the woods. In February the share of residential‑building firms saying they had too few orders fell slightly-from 49.8 % to 48.0 %. At the same time, slightly more projects were cancelled: the proportion of companies reporting cancelled construction projects rose from 11.1 % to 11.3 %. “The order situation remains unsatisfactory for many companies, even though small improvements are starting to appear” Wohlrabe added.