New home starts in Calgary area drop 40 per cent year over year
At same time, Edmonton home starts increase 37 per cent from April 2019
New home starts headed in opposite directions in Calgary and Edmonton in April, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.
Calgary recorded a year-overyear decrease of 40 per cent, while Edmonton saw an increase of close to 37 per cent.
Apartment construction played a role in both cities, says Goodson Mwale, a senior analyst for CMHC.
“Housing starts in the Edmonton census metropolitan area (CMA) increased 36.9 per cent on a year-over-year basis in April, following strong gains in apartment starts,” says Mwale. “Total housing starts in the Calgary CMA trended lower in April from the previous month after builders slowed the pace of row and apartment starts.
“On a year-to-date basis, new construction was up marginally in April compared to the previous year, with single-detached construction offsetting the decline in multi-family production.”
To the end of April 2020, starts in the Calgary CMA were 2,807 homes compared to 2,777 in the same period in 2019.
The two largest cities had the majority of starts in the province, with Calgary and Edmonton accounting for 1,765 of the 1,946 starts in centres with populations of 10,000-plus. Alberta’s starts were 5.5 per cent lower than April 2019, with only semi-detached homes showing a year-over-year increase of 14 per cent, with single-family homes experiencing the largest decrease at 10.3 per cent.
Alberta’s numbers compare to a national decline of 29.7 per cent over the same time period, according to CMHC.
Nationally, the trend was up month to month, from 153,463 in
March to 155,995 in April, excluding Quebec.
“CMHC’S monthly Starts and Completions Survey for April was conducted in each province with the exception of Quebec, following the introduction of pandemic measures in the province in late March. Residential construction in Quebec resumed on April 20, and we will resume the SCS in Quebec in May,” said Bob Dugan, CMHC’S chief economist. “Outside of Quebec, the national trend in housing starts increased in April, despite the impact of COVID-19 containment measures. This reflects strong growth in multi-family starts in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. We expect these provinces to register
declines in the near term.”
CMHC uses the trend measure as a complement to the monthly SAAR (seasonally adjusted annual rate) of housing starts to account for considerable swings in monthly estimates and obtain a more complete picture of Canada’s housing market.
Above is a deeper dive into CMHC’S April statistics for Calgary, including year-over-year starts comparisons, plus homes under construction and inventory levels in April 2020.