Construction & Engineering Data Provider · Head-to-head
Value of Construction Put in Place (VIP) vs Building Construction Investment by Type of Structure
Which construction & engineering data provider data fits your job: Value of Construction Put in Place, or Building Construction Investment by Type of Structure. API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
Value of Construction Put in Place (VIP)
Building Construction Investment by Type of Structure
Coverage, side by side
| Value of Construction Put in Place | Building Construction Investment by Type of Structure | |
|---|---|---|
| Geographic | `State / Region rows` in the state and Census region/division workbooks | `GEO` plus a standard `DGUID` geographic identifier |
What each contains
Pick by fit, not by loyalty.
| Value of Construction Put in Place | Building Construction Investment by Type of Structure | |
|---|---|---|
| Observation period | Month columns such as `Jun 2026p` plus separate annual columns (`2022-2025`) in the historical workbooks | `REF_DATE`, each quarter coded to its opening month |
| Observed quantity | Value cells beneath each Type of Construction row, printed in millions of dollars | `VALUE` in dwelling units (unit-of-measure code 300) |
| Categorical spine | `Type of Construction` hierarchy: Total Construction down through Residential/Nonresidential to Lodging, Office, Commercial | Two flat enums: `Housing estimates` (starts, under construction, completions) by `Type of unit` |
| Geography | `State / Region rows` in the state and Census region/division workbooks | `GEO` plus a standard `DGUID` geographic identifier |
| Estimate status | Column suffixes - `p` preliminary, `r` revised | `STATUS`, `SYMBOL` and `TERMINATED` flag columns on every row |
| Series identity | Adjustment-aware dictionary entries: `category_code`, `seasonally_adj`, `cell_value` | `VECTOR` ids (`v15817836`) and `COORDINATE` paths (`1.1.1`) |
What each does better
Value of Construction Put in Place
Revenue models and territory sizing attach to those figures directly; see market sizing use cases.
Structure-type detail the cube cannot offer. Where the Canadian table stops at five dwelling types, the American hierarchy continues into health care, educational, religious, public safety and the communication/power/highway residual - each a usable demand cut for contractors, suppliers and investors.
Revision hygiene built into the columns. Every print declares itself: p for preliminary, r for revised. A trend computed on the newest column stays provisional until revisions settle, which is exactly the honesty a forecast wants; see demand forecasting use cases.
Sector cuts across the whole tree. Private, public, federal, and state-and-local views repeat the same category spine, so one join key spans the entire program.
Building Construction Investment by Type of Structure
Provincial structure with sixty-seven years of depth. Reference periods run quarterly from 1959-01 through 2026-04 - roughly 270 periods per series - across Canada and all ten provinces, crossed with starts, units under construction, completions and five dwelling types. Nothing else on the shelf pairs that span with that shape; see housing starts and housing completions.
One tidy schema end to end. The whole estate lands as a 39,490-row tidy extract (5.8 MB expanded) with identical columns throughout, so a 1959 recession call and a 2026 provincial forecast load from one schema. The American record spreads across dozens of presentation-formatted workbooks that need reshaping before they model.
Corrections in the open. A correction restated September 2023 and Q3 2023 values for affected series, and per-cell status flags mark estimation state - provenance you can audit rather than discover.
The verdict
Verdict: sample both, pick by fit. Let the unit of analysis decide. If your question names American money - market size, contractor pipeline value, a revenue model keyed to nonresidential categories - Value of Construction Put in Place (VIP) is the instrument shaped for it. If your question names Canadian volume - provincial starts momentum, completions pipelines, dwelling-mix shifts reaching back to the fifties - Building Construction Investment by Type of Structure answers it in native units.
One point separates the scores, so neither wins on craft; they win on different questions. Cut each sample to the geographies, categories and windows you actually model, and let the returned rows make the call rather than the brand names.
Sample both, pick by fit. See Value of Construction Put in Place · See Building Construction Investment by Type of Structure
Fair questions
Is Value of Construction Put in Place (VIP) better than Building Construction Investment by Type of Structure?
Different instruments, one point apart - 9/10 against 8/10. VIP wins whenever the question is American money: $2,166,539 million of construction work at a seasonally adjusted annual rate in June 2026, cut by sector and structure type. The Canadian cube wins whenever the question is volume: dwelling units started, under construction and completed by province since 1959. Many desks keep both.
Do the two datasets overlap anywhere?
Only structurally. Both anchor observations to a period, both carry a categorical spine, and both declare estimate status - `p`/`r` column suffixes on one side, `STATUS` and `SYMBOL` flags on the other. Substantively they measure different things in different countries: US dollars of work put in place against Canadian dwelling-unit counts, so their series never compete head to head.
Which dataset reaches further back in time?
The Canadian cube runs deepest on a single unbroken line: quarterly reference periods from 1959-01 through 2026-04, roughly 270 periods per series, delivered as one 39,490-row extract. VIP's history is long as well but assembled from separate annual and monthly workbooks covering multi-decade windows - deep enough for cycle work, just stitched from more pieces.
Can I model US construction dollars and Canadian units together?
Yes, as complementary columns rather than one number. Join on a common quarterly grid, keep millions of dollars and dwelling units in separate fields, and treat the pairing as value-versus-volume evidence rather than a blended index.
Can Datadory deliver both datasets together?
Yes. Either record ships alone or merged onto one delivery calendar aligned on period and unit, delivered daily, weekly, or hourly - your call. Name the structure categories, provinces and date windows when you request the sample; it lands pre-cut, with the full field dictionary and sample rows for validation attached.