Metro Vancouver housing starts in December defied the usual holiday slowdown, holding steady compared with the previous month, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) figures released January 11.
Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) new home construction starts were trending at 21,633 units in December compared with 21,672 units in November. The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates of housing starts.
“The trend measure of housing starts remained steady in December,” said Richard Sam, CMHC’s principal market analyst for Vancouver.
“Overall, the actual number of housing starts in 2015 in the CMA reached 20,863. That is 1,651 units more than the previous year and the highest level since 1993. The increase can be attributed to strong demand for both rental housing and homeownership.”
Abbotsford-Mission CMA housing starts even saw a month-over-month increase in December, trending at 1,031 units, up from 977 units in November.
Across the whole country, the trend measure of housing starts in Canada was 203,502 units in December compared with 208,204 in November.
“A decrease in both the multiple and single starts segments drove the December trend lower,” said Bob Dugan, CMHC chief economist.
“[Overall] starts increased in 2015 compared with 2014, largely driven by the condominium market in Toronto. Had the Toronto condominium starts remained stable in 2015, national starts would have declined on a year-over-year basis.”
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.
