Data Analysis

Real GDP grew at a 2.2 percent annual rate in the second quarter of 2026, revised up seven tenths of a point, with real estate and rental and leasing the leading industry contributor.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis also reported that Florida led all states in consumer spending growth in 2025 at 7.0 percent, with housing and utilities among the leading contributors. State GDP rose in 44 states and the District of Columbia.

Real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the second quarter of 2026, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported on September 30 in its third estimate, revised up 0.7 percentage point from the second estimate. Real estate and rental and leasing was the first-named leading industry contributor to the increase. In the same release, BEA reported that consumer spending by state rose in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in 2025, ranging from 7.0 percent in Florida to 4.2 percent in California. Florida led the country.

How unusual is a 0.7 point revision at the third estimate?

BEA publishes three estimates of each quarter's GDP. The advance estimate for the second quarter of 2026 put growth at 1.5 percent. The second estimate, published August 26, also put it at 1.5 percent, and BEA's own wording was that real GDP increased at the same rate as in the advance estimate. Today's third estimate puts it at 2.2 percent.

So the entire 0.7 point revision to this quarter landed at the third estimate, after the second estimate changed nothing. That calculation is the desk's, comparing three BEA releases. BEA does not characterize the revision as large or unusual and this article does not either.

BEA attributes the revision to upward revisions to investment, consumer spending and government spending. A revision of this size at the third stage matters to anyone who read the August coverage of this quarter, including this publication's own, and concluded that the second quarter was a 1.5 percent quarter. On today's figures it was not.

What does real estate leading the industry list actually mean?

BEA's release names four leading industry contributors to the increase in real GDP: real estate and rental and leasing, information, durable goods manufacturing, and finance and insurance. Real estate and rental and leasing appears first in that list.

A caution on reading too much into the order. BEA prints the names without printing each industry's contribution in percentage points, so this desk cannot say how far ahead of information or durable goods manufacturing real estate sat, or whether the list is strictly ranked at all. What can be said is that BEA named it among the leading contributors and named it first.

The category itself is broader than home sales. Real estate and rental and leasing in the national accounts covers imputed rent on owner-occupied housing, actual rent paid by tenants, commercial leasing, and brokerage and property management activity. A strong quarter for the category is not the same as a strong quarter for Florida home sales, and no part of this release breaks the industry out by state.

Corporate profits from current production increased $384.0 billion in the quarter.

What did the state tables show for Florida?

This is where the release is thinner than it looks, and the distinction matters.

For the second quarter of 2026, BEA published state GDP and state personal income. Real GDP increased in 44 states and the District of Columbia, with state changes ranging from 4.0 percent in New York to a 2.3 percent decrease in West Virginia. That means seven of the 51 jurisdictions saw real GDP fall, a figure this desk arrived at by subtraction. Personal income increased in 49 states and the District of Columbia, ranging from a 6.4 percent increase in Wisconsin to a 4.2 percent decrease in North Dakota, leaving two that declined. Nationally, current-dollar personal income increased $314.3 billion, or 4.7 percent at an annual rate.

Florida's own second-quarter figures are not in the release narrative. BEA names only the highest and lowest state on each measure, and Florida is neither. The desk read the release page and the full release PDF and confirmed Florida does not appear in either of those two sections. Florida's quarterly state GDP and personal income values exist in BEA's interactive regional tables, which this desk did not retrieve, and no figure for Florida on either measure is stated here.

What is the Florida consumer spending figure, and which year does it cover?

The Florida number in this release is not a second-quarter figure at all. It is annual state personal consumption expenditures for 2025, a separate statistic BEA publishes alongside the quarterly state data once a year.

On that measure, consumer spending rose in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in 2025, and the range ran from 7.0 percent in Florida at the top to 4.2 percent in California at the bottom, a spread of 2.8 points. BEA's release also states that health care and housing and utilities were the leading contributors to the increases in most states, naming Florida specifically among them.

That second sentence is the one worth holding onto. In BEA's own words, housing and utilities helped drive the country's fastest state spending growth, and Florida is named.

Florida also led this measure the previous year. BEA's state consumer spending page, carrying the release published September 26, 2025, reports 2024 state PCE ranging from a 7.0 percent increase in Florida to a 4.3 percent increase in Mississippi. Two consecutive years, Florida first, 7.0 percent each time. The 2024 figure comes from an older release vintage and may have been revised since.

Florida market-level detail is on the Miami and Tampa pages, statewide price and inventory trends are on the Florida housing tracker, and the full market index is at Florida Housing Intelligence.

Limitations

The three GDP estimates compared here come from three separate BEA releases, in July, August and September 2026. The comparison and the observation that the full revision landed at the third estimate are the desk's, not BEA's.

BEA names the leading industry contributors without publishing each industry's contribution in percentage points. Nothing here should be read as a claim about the size of real estate's contribution, only that BEA named it and named it first. The release contains no state-by-state industry detail, so no part of the real estate finding is a Florida measurement.

Florida's second-quarter 2026 state GDP and state personal income figures are not published in the release text and are not reported in this article. The desk confirmed their absence on two surfaces rather than assuming it. Readers wanting those values need BEA's interactive regional tables.

The Florida consumer spending figure covers calendar year 2025, not the second quarter of 2026, and the two should not be read together. The 2024 comparison figure comes from BEA's state consumer spending page, which carries the September 2025 release vintage and shows a September 26, 2025 date, so it predates any subsequent revision. This desk initially flagged the matching 7.0 percent figures across the two years as a possible extraction error, and confirmed the 2025 value on a second independent read of BEA's full release PDF, which also returned a distinct Florida sentence absent from the 2024 page.

The counts of seven states with falling GDP and two with falling personal income are the desk's subtraction from BEA's published counts of 44 and 49 out of 51 jurisdictions. BEA did not print either figure.

No figure in this article comes from a wire service or a secondary mirror. Each headline figure was read from BEA's own release page or full release PDF, with second reads asking only for verbatim transcription.

Sources

Bureau of Economic Analysis, GDP (Third Estimate), Industries, Corporate Profits, State GDP, and State Personal Income, 2nd Quarter 2026; State PCE, 2025, released September 30, 2026: https://www.bea.gov/news/2026/gdp-third-estimate-industries-corporate-profits-state-gdp-and-state-personal-income-2nd

Bureau of Economic Analysis, full release PDF for the above: https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2026-09/gdp2q26-3rd.pdf

Bureau of Economic Analysis, GDP (Second Estimate) and Corporate Profits, 2nd Quarter 2026, released August 26, 2026: https://www.bea.gov/news/2026/gdp-second-estimate-and-corporate-profits-2nd-quarter-2026

Bureau of Economic Analysis, GDP (Advance Estimate), 2nd Quarter 2026: https://www.bea.gov/news/2026/gdp-advance-estimate-2nd-quarter-2026

Bureau of Economic Analysis, GDP by State: https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gdp-state

Bureau of Economic Analysis, Consumer Spending by State: https://www.bea.gov/data/consumer-spending/state

Disclosure: Jon Brooks is a co-founder of Momentum Realty, a Florida real estate brokerage that owns and funds Florida Housing Intelligence. Momentum has a financial interest in Florida real estate transactions, including in markets named here. See our editorial standards.