CMHC Housing Starts for December 2013
By Lucas on Jan 10, 2014
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) released its first report of 2014, focusing on December 2013 housing starts.
Last December, Canadian housing starts were trending at 195,760 units, compared to 196,430 in November. This is a six-month moving average of monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR), meaning that the trend is based on “monthly figures adjusted to remove normal seasonal variation and multiplied by 12 to reflect annual levels.” The standalone SAAR for December 2013 was 189,672, a slight decrease from November’s 197,797.
The SAAR of urban starts showed a decrease of 5.1%, dropping to 168,214. Multiple urban starts were down 4.1% to 108,910 units, and single-detached urban starts saw a significant decrease of 6.7%, dropping to 59,304.
In December 2013, the SAAR of urban starts increased only in British Columbia and Quebec, while decreases were experienced in the Prairies, Atlantic Canada, and Ontario.
Rural starts (centres with a population less than 10,000) were estimated at an SAAR of 21,458.
“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.
The decline of inventories is what will keep prices rising through 2014, especially for single-detached homes. With many builders and developers holding back on launches since mid-2013, this year may prove slow for housing starts.
With that said, there are many launches approaching that we are very excited about, so stay tuned!
