Miserable winter weather throughout much of Canada — Vancouver excluded — has pushed housing starts to their lowest levels in more than five years.
Data released March 9 from the Canadian Housing and Mortgage Corporation shows housing starts dropped from 187,000 units in January to 156,300 units in February.
Metro Vancouver — known for a hot housing market that frequently defies trends throughout the rest of Canada — even saw housing starts fall from 16,650 units in January to 13,400 units in February.
“Any way you slice it, today's housing starts release was among the weakest prints we have seen in some time. While in part weather induced, thanks to the harsh February weather in much of Canada, the trend is clearly toward weakness in the housing market,” Randall Bartlett, senior economist at TD Economics, wrote in a note to investors.
“As a result, we expect that the housing market will weigh on real GDP growth in the first quarter of 2015. This is despite the recent Bank of Canada rate cut, which will likely only have a small impact due to its modest size.”
