The total value of residential building permits in BC rose to $541.9 million in October 2014, a rise of 30.8 per cent compared with October 2013, according to Statistics Canada data released December 8.
Month over month, home construction permits rose 4.6 per cent compared with September 2014.
The rises far outstripped the national average increases, as Canadian residential building permits as a whole were valued at $7.256 billion in October, a rise of 3.8 per cent year over year and 0.7 per cent month over month.
The figures were released on the same day that according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) announced housing starts in Vancouver were strong for November 2014, reflecting only a small – and expected – decrease from October’s figures.
The Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) trend for new home construction, which is a measure of a six-month moving average of seasonally adjusted annual rates, stood at 19,492 units in November, slightly down from 19,548 units in October
“The trend measure of housing starts was stable in November as small increases in single-detached and town house starts were offset by small declines in apartment and duplex starts,” said Robyn Adamache, CMHC’s senior market analyst.
“To date, actual housing starts totalled 17,494 units during 2014 and most of these were in the cities of Vancouver, Surrey, and Richmond.”
Vancouver’s figures reflected Canada as a whole, which also saw little change between October and November.
Housing starts across the country were trending at 195,792 units in November compared with 195,796 in October.
CMHC said it uses six-month moving averages to account for considerable swings in monthly estimates and obtain a more complete picture of the state of the housing market. In some situations, said the CMHC, analyzing only the monthly seasonally adjusted data can be misleading in some markets, as they can be variable from one month to the next.
“The [national] trend essentially held steady for a third consecutive month in November,” said Bob Dugan, CMHC’s chief economist. “This is in line with our expectations for 2014, of a stable national picture with new home building concentrated in multiple starts, particularly in Quebec, British Columbia and Ontario.”
