The new year is always a precarious time for the new construction marketplace.

Residential construction spending in the Houston area was just shy of $635 million in January, a decent 4 percent increase from Jan. 2014, according to new numbers from Dodge Data & Analytics.

That increase comes at a time when new construction on the national front declined 3.4 percent, so Houston’s increase suggests that the market is, for the time being, resisting any seasonal declines; will that continue, though, with oil prices remaining low and builders all but guaranteeing a fall in construction? We shall see!

See our graph below for some additional perspective on Houston’s new construction market, and how it compares with other metro markets: