While housing starts across Canada slipped in December, the Vancouver area saw an increase in construction in the month, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
Starts were trending at 20,030 units for the month, which represents an increase of 2.7% compared with 19,511 units in November.
“The trend measure of housing starts moved higher in December due to small increases in construction of all types of homes except town houses,” said CMHC senior market analyst Robyn Adamache.
“Single-detached homebuilding accounted for most of this increase and was concentrated in the cities of Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, Surrey and Vancouver.”
Across the province, starts were trending at 27,988 units, compared with 27,568 in November. CMHC’s B.C. regional economist Carol Frketich said this number has remained relatively flat since August, which is indicative of balanced market conditions.
Nationwide starts were trending at slightly lower compared with a month ago, falling from 194,807 to 192,047. Both multiple-and single-detached starts fell over the month.
CIBC economist Avery Shenfeld points out that December is consistently a soft month for housing starts, and spring numbers will provide a clearer picture of the overall trend.
The CMHC uses a six-month moving average in order to take into account swings in monthly estimates. This is done to remove month-to-month swings that the corporation said can be misleading.
