Annual pace of housing starts rises in January

OTTAWA — The pace of housing starts across Canada picked up in January compared with December, fuelled by multi-unit projects such as condominiums and apartments.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts was 207,408 units in January, up from 206,305 in December, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported Wednesday.

Economists had expected the annual rate to come in at 200,000, according to Thomson Reuters.

In the Hamilton census metropolitan area, builders started 197 housing units last month, up from 129 in January last year. They started 67 single-detached homes, two semi-detached homes, 26 rowhouse units and 102 apartment units.

The housing corporation said starts in the Hamilton area were trending at an annual rate of 3,167 units, down from 3,833 in December. The downward trend occurred because of a decrease in multi-unit starts, it said.

“The trend in multi-unit housing starts reached a record level in 2016, reflecting strong first-time buyer demand,” said Abdul Kargbo, CMHC’s senior market analyst for the Hamilton and Brantford CMAs. “The record housing starts in 2016 will likely result in fewer multi-unit housing starts in 2017 as the number of units under construction is at an elevated level.”

Nationally, January’s strongerthan-expected housing starts follow a year that saw a record number of Canadian home resales, noted Royal Bank senior economist Nathan Janzen.

“The recent strength in housing starts has been largely concentrated in Ontario, where resale markets have also been the hottest in recent months (and January temperatures were warmer than usual),” Janzen wrote in a report.

However, Janzen expects the pace of housing starts will slow as the year progresses.

The increase in overall home starts in January came as an increase in multiple-dwelling projects offset a decline in single-detached construction.

The rate of multiple urban starts increased by 4.2 per cent to 125,886 on a seasonally adjusted basis in January, while the rate of singledetached urban starts fell 4.6 per cent to 63,802 units. Rural starts were estimated at 17,720 units.

The housing corporation said the six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rate was 199,834 units in January compared with 197,881 in December.

Regionally, urban starts increased in Ontario and Atlantic Canada, but fell in British Columbia, the Prairies and Quebec.