July 2013 Housing Starts in Canada: CMHC

 In Real Estate Market News

 

Housing starts in Canada were trending at 187,416 units in July compared to 182,142 in June, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR)1 of housing starts.

 

“The trend in total housing starts continued to be relatively stable in July, remaining within a narrow range of roughly 182,000 to 188,000 units since March 2013,” said Mathieu Laberge, Deputy Chief Economist at CMHC. “For the past few months, total housing starts have followed the stabilizing trend observed in sales of existing homes earlier this year. As expected, the trends in the two market segments typically follow a similar pattern with the new home market lagging behind the existing home market by a few months.”

 

CMHC uses the trend measure as a complement to the monthly SAAR of housing starts to account for considerable swings in monthly estimates and obtain a more complete picture of the state of the housing market. In some situations analyzing only SAAR data can be misleading in some markets, as they are largely driven by the multiples segment of the markets which can be quite volatile from one month to the next.

 

The standalone monthly SAAR was 192,853 units in July, relatively unchanged from 193,797 in June. The SAAR of urban starts decreased by 2.1 per cent in July to 173,042 units, mostly reflecting a decline in the single starts segments in July. Specifically, single urban starts decreased by 5.5 per cent to 58,731 units in July while the multiple urban starts segment essentially held steady at 114,311 units.

 

July’s seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban starts increased in British Columbia. Urban starts decreased in all other regions, including Atlantic Canada, the Prairies, Ontario and Quebec.

 

Rural starts2 were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 19,811 units.

 

Preliminary Housing Starts data is also available in English and French at the following link: Preliminary Housing Starts Tables

 

As Canada’s national housing agency, CMHC draws on more than 65 years of experience to help Canadians access a variety of high quality, environmentally sustainable and affordable housing solutions. CMHC also provides reliable, impartial and up-to-date housing market reports, analysis and knowledge to support and assist consumers and the housing industry in making informed decisions.

 

1 All starts figures in this release, other than actual starts and the trend estimate, are seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR) — that is, monthly figures adjusted to remove normal seasonal variation and multiplied by 12 to reflect annual levels. By removing seasonal ups and downs, seasonal adjustment allows for a comparison from one season to the next and from one month to the next. Reporting monthly figures at annual rates indicates the annual level of starts that would be obtained if the monthly pace was maintained for 12 months. This facilitates comparison of the current pace of activity to annual forecasts as well as to historical annual levels.

 

2 CMHC estimates the level of starts in centres with a population of less than 10,000 for each of the three months of the quarter, at the beginning of each quarter. During the last month of the quarter, CMHC conducts the survey in these centres and revises the estimate.

 

Follow CMHC on Twitter @CMHC_ca

Information on this release:

Charles Sauriol
CMHC Media Relations
613-748-2799
csauriol@cmhc-schl.gc.ca

 

Additional data is available upon request.

Housing Starts in Canada — All Areas

 

Preliminary Housing Start Data
July 2013
June 2013 July 2013
Trend1, all areas 182,142 187,416
SAAR, all areas 193,797 192,853
SAAR, rural areas 17,061 19,811
SAAR, urban centres2
Single-detached 62,174 58,731
Multiples 114,562  114,311
Total 176,736 173,042
Atlantic, urban centres2 8,143 6,661
Quebec, urban centres2 30,023 29,652
Ontario, urban centres2 60,378 59,547
Prairies, urban centres2 48,797 46,350
British Columbia, urban centres2 29,395 30,832
Canada July 2012 July 2013
Actual, all areas 19,852 17,993
Actual, rural areas 2,376 2,256
Actual, urban centres2
July — Single-detached 6,731 5,809
July — Multiples 10,745 9,928
July — Total 17,476 15,737
January to July — Single-detached 37,884 34,841
January to July — Multiples 72,795 58,398
January to July — Total 110,679 93,239

 

Source: CMHC
1 The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR).
2 Urban centres with a population of 10,000 and over.
Detailed data available upon request.

Recent Posts