Metro Vancouver housing starts were up slightly in October, with condo-apartment and townhome construction increasing as demand rises, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) statistics released November 9.
Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) housing starts were trending at 21,595 units in October compared with 21,455 units in September. The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates of housing starts.
“Housing starts trended higher this month as townhome and apartment construction increased,” said Richard Sam, CMHC’s principal market analyst for Vancouver.
“Lower inventories of newly completed and unsold condominiums have prompted builders to add more supply to the market.”
Housing starts in the Abbotsford-Mission CMA were trending at 843 units in October, up from 837 units in September, with increases in both single-detached and apartment condominium starts.
Across Canada, the trend measure of housing starts was 206,089 units in October compared with 202,793 in September, said the CMHC.
“New condominium and rental starts continued to push the trend higher in October,” said Bob Dugan, CMHC’s chief economist.
“Rental starts across urban centres are poised to reach their highest level since 1992 due to low vacancy rates in recent years.”
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.
