Spending on U.S. residential construction continued to decline in June, as the seasonally adjusted annual construction rate fell 16.4 percent from a year ago, the Census Bureau reported today.

The value of home construction put in place last month registered a rate of $544.3 billion, compared with $650.9 billion the same time last year. Compared to May, the rate was down 0.7 percent, marking the 16th consecutive monthly decline. This rate is a projection of a monthly total over a 12-month period, adjusted for seasonal variations in construction activity.

Nearly one in five Realtors has sold a U.S. home to an international client in the past year, with the majority of those sales occurring in the Sun Belt states, according to new research by the National Association of Realtors.

The 2007 NAR Profile of International Home Buying Activity is the most comprehensive research that NAR has conducted to explore the characteristics of second-home purchases in the United States made by international clients. An international client is a foreign citizen living abroad who has legally entered the United States to purchase a home.

A key benchmark that gauges future growth in the home remodeling industry indicates that growth in home improvement expenditures will hold stable throughout 2007, even with recent weakness in house prices and consumer confidence.

According to the indicator, developed by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, homeowner spending for home improvements will essentially remain constant through the first quarter of 2008, and overall growth in spending for 2007 is expected to be 3 percent.

“Homeowners continue to draw on built-up equity in their homes to finance home improvements,” explains Nicolas P. Retsinas, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies. “However, the pace of spending remains moderate and tempered in the context of a very soft housing market.”

An agent with Paragon Real Estate Group in San Francisco, Joe Marko is fond of giving his clients one piece of advice: “I always tell people that if the property is unique in some way and they like it, they should buy it.”

While some may suspect — because Marko stands to make a nice commission on a sale — an ulterior motive hidden beneath his counsel, there is something else to consider: Marko takes his own advice. He and his partner, Rafael Acevedo — both former flight attendants with US Airways who have been working in real estate for four years — are buying a home that is nothing if not unique: a former church that became a synagogue that was remodeled into a residence nine years ago on the “This Old House” TV show.

Q: I recently put my house on the market. I received a purchase offer from a buyer, we came to an agreement and signed a contract. But due to job- related issues, I am no longer willing to move and do not want to close the sale. Can I get out of this?

A: Seller’s remorse can be a very expensive disease. Presuming there are no loopholes in the contract, if your buyer really wants to own your house, he can sue you in a specific-performance lawsuit. He will probably record a “lis pendens” against your title to effectively prevent you from selling to another buyer or refinancing the mortgage.