Metro Vancouver housing starts increased again in July, driven by a boost in apartment and townhome construction, according to a Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) report published August 11.
Housing starts in the Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) were trending at 21,874 units compared with 20,080 units in June. The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates of housing starts.
“Strong demand for all types of homes translated into higher levels of housing starts in July”, said Robyn Adamache, CMHC’s principal market analyst for Vancouver.
“The trend measure of single-detached house construction edged higher while apartment and town home building registered more substantial increases. These trends point to robust demand for homes across the price spectrum.”
In the Abbotsford-Mission CMA, housing starts were trending at 652 units in July, up from 553 units in June.
Across the country, the trend measure of housing starts was 185,586 units in July, compared with 184,035 the previous month.
Bob Dugan, CMHC’s chief economist, said, “Housing starts in Canada have been trending higher over the past three months, with gains in multiple[-family housing] starts offsetting declines in single[-family home] starts.
“The decline in single starts is in line with CMHC’s expectations of buyers shifting demand away from higher priced new single-detached homes towards lower-priced alternatives.
“Gains in multiple starts are largely due to higher rental apartment starts, a substantial portion of which are seniors’ residences.”
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.
