The Quebec market slipping by 22% from 2012

December 2013 Housing Starts in Canada

OTTAWA, January 9, 2014 — Housing starts in Canada were trending at 195,760 units in December compared to 196,430 in November, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR)1 of housing starts.

“The trend in housing starts has remained essentially stable since October 2013. Housing demand continues to be healthy in Canada. The trend in existing home sales has been increasing since April 2013, while the trend in inventories of newly completed and unabsorbed homes has been declining at a modest pace since September 2013,” said Bruno Duhamel, Manager of Economic and Housing Analysis at CMHC.

CMHC uses the trend measure as a complement to the monthly SAAR of housing starts to account for considerable swings in monthly estimates and obtain a more complete picture of the state of the housing market. In some situations analyzing only SAAR data can be misleading in some markets, as they are largely driven by the multiples segment of the markets which can be quite volatile from one month to the next.

The standalone monthly SAAR was 189,672 units in December, a decrease from 197,797 in November. The SAAR of urban starts decreased by 5.1 per cent in December to 168,214 units. Multiple urban starts decreased by 4.1 per cent to 108,910 units in December while the single-detached urban starts segment decreased by 6.7 per cent to 59,304 units.

In December, the seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban starts increased in British Columbia and Quebec while decreasing in the Prairies, Atlantic Canada and Ontario.

Rural starts2 were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 21,458