Vancouver’s housing starts rose again in July, despite yesterday’s news of falling building permit values the previous month, according to a Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation trend report released August 9.
Housing starts in the Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) were trending at 30,361 units in July compared with 29,933 units in June.
The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR) of housing starts.
“Strong demand for new homes in July kept the housing starts trend well above its five-year average,” said Robyn Adamache, CMHC principal market analyst for Vancouver.
“Nearly six in ten detached homes and almost all apartments were sold on completion, meaning the supply of completed and unsold new homes remains low.”
Housing starts in the Abbotsford-Mission CMA were trending at 1,251, down from 1,399 units in June, as construction of multi-family units slipped slightly.
Across Canada, the trend rose to 201,936 units in July compared with 197,847 in June, driven by rises in BC and Ontario’s multi-family sectors.
Aled ab Iorwerth, CMHC’s deputy chief economist, said, “This reflects continued strong demand for lower-priced homes and low inventories of completed and unsold new units.”
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.
