March sees increase in single-family home starts
Shovels turned for 23 more singlefamily homes in the Calgary area last month than the same time in 2017, says a federal agency.
There were 306 starts on singlefamily homes in the Calgary census metropolitan area in March, climbing 7.5 per cent from 283 year over year, says Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. The metropolitan area includes activity in nearby cities and towns, such as Airdrie, Cochrane and Chestermere.
Within Calgary city limits, the number of single-family homes that broke ground jumped to 228 from 202.
“Activity from (single-detached homes) has been fairly stable over the last couple of months,” says Richard Cho, principal of market analysis for CMHC. “Some of the improvement in the economy and labour market have helped support activity in this area.”
This comes during a month when inventory of single-family homes listed through the city ’s resale market was up more than 30 per cent year over year, according to numbers from the Calgary Real Estate Board.
“I think it’s having a bit of an impact,” Cho says of the increase in supply of previously owned homes. “Even though starts are up from the previous year, we’re still down from historical averages, so we need to keep that in perspective while looking at some of these numbers.”
The 10-year average for construction starts on single-family homes in the Calgary area in March, prior to last month, was 373, says Cho.
March marked the 14th consecutive month in which northwest Calgary led all ends of the city in new construction on single-family homes. It did so with 79 starts last month. The other areas with double-digits in new construction were southeast Calgary with 50 starts, 40 in the northeast, 34 in the Fish Creek area, and 21 in the southwest quadrant.
Southeast Calgary saw the strongest growth, rising from 26 in March 2017, says CMHC.
When looking at single-family homes that were in various stages of the build process in the Calgary area, the difference between last month and March 2017 is even wider. There were 2,513 singlefamily homes under construction this past March, marking a 14 per cent rally year over year.
Northwest and southeast Calgary paced the Calgary area in single-family homes that were under construction last month with 591 and 341, respectively, says CMHC.
However, the count on constructed but unabsorbed singlefamily homes dipped in March. Supply recorded a two per cent downtick to 455 from 465 in March 2017, says CMHC.
The last time there was a yearover-year decline in inventory of single-family homes in the Calgary area was in July 2016.
Northwest Calgary was the only area in triple-digits for supply last month with 152 single-family homes ready for possession. The northeast quadrant had the next highest tally with 67.