CMHC says annual pace of housing starts in July up 16% from June

“Builders broke ground on a larger-than-expected number of units in July, with Ontario recording the best month in over a year,” TD Bank economist Maria Solovieva wrote in a report.

However, Solovieva noted that despite the rebound, housing starts remain below the multi-decade highs observed in 2021 and 2022, particularly in single and semi-detached units.

“We expect multi-family units to soon contribute to this decline, given weak pre-sale activity in recent years and elevated borrowing and construction costs,” she wrote.

The supply of affordable housing has been a key political issue. Governments at all levels have been trying to do what they can to help boost new construction.

The housing starts report followed figures from the Canadian Real Estate Association on Thursday that showed while home sales in July were up 4.8 per cent compared with a year ago, on a seasonally adjusted basis, they were down 0.7 per cent from June this year.

BMO senior economist Robert Kavcic said residential construction activity remains sturdy in Canada despite the clear slowdown in the resale market.

“The fact that such a cyclical component of the economy hasn’t buckled under sharply higher borrowing costs suggests that the more structural forces still at play are outweighing some pockets of weakness,” Kavcic wrote in a report.

CMHC said the annual pace of urban starts rose 17 per cent to 261,134 units for the month.

The annual rate of urban starts of multi-unit homes increased 21 per cent to 217,306 in July, while the pace of single-detached urban starts rose two per cent to 43,828 units.

The annual pace of rural starts was estimated at 18,375 units for the month.

CMHC said the six-month moving average of the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts in Canada was up 3.2 per cent at 255,783 units in July compared with 247,840 in June.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 16, 2024.