Canadian Housing Starts Dip in March 2014
By Lucas on Apr 09, 2014
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) released a report on March 2014’s housing starts in Canada, showing decreases across the board (almost).
Housing starts in Canada were trending at 184,476 units in March 2014, compared to 191,126 in February. This number is a six-month moving average of monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR), meaning that the average is based on figures that have been modified to remove seasonal variation, and then multiplied by 12 to get an annual figure.
The standalone SAAR for March 2014 was 156,823, a significant decrease compared to February’s 190,639.
“In March, the trend in housing starts declined below 190,000 units for the first time in six months, reflecting a decrease in multiple unit starts. Lower starts activity over the remainder of the year compared to 2013 is anticipated as builders continue to adjust activity in order to manage inventory levels,” said Mathieu Laberge, Deputy Chief Economist at CMHC.
Housing starts in western Canada increased
The SAAR of multiple urban starts for March decreased 25.5% to 87,372 units compared to February. Single detached urban starts also decreased, but only by 5.4% to 55,130 units. As a whole, the SAAR of urban starts decreased 18.8% to 142,502 units.
British Columbia and The Prairies were the only regions of Canada that saw increases in urban starts. Atlantic Canada, Ontario, and Quebec all saw decreases.
CMHC estimates the SAAR of rural starts (population less than 10,000) was trending at a rate of 14,321 units. February was estimated at 16,510 units.
