There were 19,001 housing starts in the Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) in May, compared with 18,670 in April, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation(CMHC). The figure is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates of housing starts.
"Increased apartment construction in May contributed to a higher housing starts trend this month compared with April's starts," said Robyn Adamache, CMHC's Senior Market Analyst for Vancouver.
"The majority of May apartment starts were concentrated in the cities of Burnaby, Coquitlam and Richmond."
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.
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