Starts on new houses staying steady
The pace of home building in Prince George did not falter over the past year, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation numbers released this week.
Work began on 190 single-family houses during 2017, an eight-start increase over the total for 2016.
Jody Tindill, a past president of the Canadian Home Builders Association - Northern B.C. called it a “comfortable year.”
“Nothing’s booming but it’s steady, which is what we like,” she said Thursday. “I know the sub-trades were very busy all year.”
The total remains a far cry from what was seen in 2007, when there were starts on 288 homes. But then the recession hit and the count dropped to a low of 113 starts in 2009. The trend has been generally upwards since then.
On the multiple-family front, there were starts on 69 units of apartment-style housing, down from 119 in 2016 but still at a healthy total compared to previous years.
“What those apartments will do is free up demand for entry-level housing, hopefully,” Tindill said. “But there is still demand for that $300,000-and-under price point, there always will be.”
Starts on row housing amounted to seven in 2017, down from 40 the year before, while work began on a dozen units of semi-detached, up from 10 for 2016.
As of the end of December, there were 141 new singlefamily homes and 161 apartment units under construction in the city.
New single-family homes sold for an average of $462,276 in December.
Looking ahead, Tindill sees challenges in the form of high and volatile prices for lumber and plywood, the new stress test buyers must go through to get a mortgage, even if it’s uninsured, and looming interest rate hikes. Customers have been scaling back their plans in response. “The trend’s going to be smaller homes or less buyers buying new homes,” Tindill said. “The renovation market is strong.”