Detached housing starts trending higher despite rising prices
By Newinhomes on Sep 11, 2019
There’s been a lot in the news about the detached home market making a comeback this year, and it looks like housing starts are also on the rise.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation released its monthly housing starts data for August 2019, reporting the trend reaching 218,998 units, up from the 208,931 in July. The trend is a six month moving average of seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR).
The standalone monthly SAAR of housing starts in August 2019 was 226,639 units, up nearly 2% from the previous month. The SAAR of urban starts jumped 2% to 213,663 units, with multi-unit starts down 1.4% with 160,388 units and detached starts up 13.6% with 53,275. Rural starts are estimated at 12,976 units.
"The national trend in housing starts increased in August," says Bob Dugan, CMHC's chief economist. "Higher trending single-detached starts in urban centres in July and August following roughly a year of declines combined with higher-trending multi-family units in August to push the total starts trend to its highest level since June 2018.”
In Guelph, housing starts trended upwards for the second month in a row, mostly due to detached growth hitting the highest level since December 2017. In the resale market, Guelph has recently experienced some of the strongest year-over-year price growth in the Greater Golden Horseshoe.
All housing types in Toronto experienced a jump in starts, except for semis. The strong preconstruction condo apartment sales over the last two years continue to support multi-unit starts. Detached starts trended upwards despite the slowing demand as prices continue to rise and remain out of reach for many families.
The CMHC also highlighted Peterborough because housing starts hit a 12-year high with many detached and multi-unit starts. Apartment starts have already surpassed annual totals of the last 25 years.
Compared to 2018, new home sales in the Greater Toronto Area have been high, so housing starts in the region will likely remain steady going into 2020.
