Gas station sales rise 15.5%
U.S. retail sales posted their biggest jump in three years in March largely because of the surge in gas prices, according to the advanced monthly sales report that was released Tuesday from the Department of Commerce.
March's total retail and food sales came in at $752.1 billion, up 1.7% from February and up 4% from the year before. Since the start of the year, total sales have risen 3.7% from the same three-month span in 2025.
Gas prices sent skyrocketing by the war in Iran inflated much of that rise in sales, the March price numbers showed. Sales from gas stations rose 15.5% between February and March and were up 18.1% from a year earlier, way more than the increases seen in any other business sector. Excluding gas stations, retail sales rose a more modest 0.6% month over month.
"It's a blowout retail sales figure for March," said Heather Long, chief economist for the Navy Federal Credit Union, in a statement. "Stripping out the big surge in spending on gas due to the Middle East conflict, it's still a solid 0.6% increase in March. There are gains in most categories, though not much at restaurants, which may indicate some early signs of pullback as consumers have to spend more at the pump.”
Some of those gains were in building sectors, such as the 2.2% month-over-month rise in furniture and home furnishings and the 0.7% monthly increase for building materials and garden supplies, according to the report. Still, furnishings sales contracted year over year, and the building sector posted a more noticeable 2.6% yearly increase.
Pending home sales tick up
The number of houses under contract saw a small bump in March, according to the latest report from the National Association of Realtors.
Pending homes sales, a measure of for-sale residential properties under contract, posted a 1.5% increase between February and March, but the metric was still down 1.1% year over year. Still, the monthly rise amid stubbornly high mortgage rates hints at “pent-up housing demand,” said Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for the Chicago-headquartered trade organization, in a statement. “A greater supply of inventory will help translate that demand into more home sales.”
And residential markets across the country are showing that inventory glut, with active listings up roughly 11% from a year earlier to hit 1.27 million properties, according to analysis from Homes.com.
On a regional basis, March brought a monthly uptick of homes under contract in Northeastern and Southern markets, but a decline from the Midwest and West. On a yearly basis, the South was the only market to see pending home sales rise.
“A good number of markets in the South experienced price cuts over the past year but recorded the strongest job growth,” Yun said in the statement. “That combination should lead to stronger housing market activity in the South this year.”
Office attendance edges higher
Office use in the United States rose to 55.3% of its pre-pandemic level for the week ended April 15, according to data from security technology firm Kastle Systems. While it stayed below March’s post-pandemic peak of 56.9%, last week’s figure was up from 52.3% the week before, and it marked the highest percentage Kastle recorded since 55.9% for the week ended Feb. 11.
Kastle produced the weekly metric for 10 major U.S. markets using an anonymized keycard data from the roughly 2,600 office properties it services that host about 41,000 businesses.
Texas office properties continued to lead the pack, with Austin’s office attendance up nearly 3% from the week before to hit 76.8% of its pre-pandemic level. Dallas followed at 65% and Houston came in third at 61.3%. While San Francisco stayed fairly flat at 42.5%, Philadelphia saw a 3% bump to 43.8%, and Washington, D.C., surpassed 50% to hit 53.9%.