Construction Trend Tuesday
Solving a religious mystery and car dealerships
Construction Trend Tuesday covers one (hopefully) interesting industry trend in a quick, two minute read. You can access the archive of CTT posts here.
In last week’s Construction Trend Tuesday post, I asked about the surge in religious construction spending over the past few years. Our readers came through with several plausible explanations, including:
Churches received pandemic relief funding but didn’t see a decline in donations. This allowed for significant capital investments.
Mega churches building satellite campuses.
A rebound in religiosity, especially among young people.
An increase in non-denominational Christian churches, especially in suburbs.
Massive investments from the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints.
Recent splits between protestant faiths.
The increase is probably a combination of some or all of these factors—and a big thank you to all who responded.
This week’s trend is less mysterious and, frankly, less interesting. Construction spending on car dealerships has struggled since the start of the pandemic.
No real surprise there. Supply chains seriously limited inventory during the first year or two of the pandemic. By the time inventories had a chance to recover, interest rates were too high to support much car buying.
The increase since 2022 is mostly just inflation and a return to (almost) 2017-2019 levels—the graph below shows the same data but adjusted for inflation.
While car purchases surged in March 2025, as buyers rushed to beat tariffs, the 25% tax on vehicle imports will not be good for this segment.
What’s Next
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Regarding car dealerships, I believe the manufacturers and new car dealers have made a conscious decision post-Covid not to hold as much inventory. After having bought several cars in the last year, it seems like it is rare to be able to walk into a dealership and leave that day with the car you want. It used to be, "Which color would you like, of the 20 on our lot?" and now it is more like, "We have one in production and two on a ship and one at the port, so you can put down a deposit today and take delivery in the future." Thus, it would make sense that the dealerships are in no hurry to expand their space.