Housing Trend Stable in December

The trend in housing starts was 226,777 units in December 2017, compared to 226,178 units in November 2017, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). This trend measure is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR) of housing starts.

“Despite the variation in activity across the country, the national trend in housing starts held steady at its highest level since 2008,” said Bob Dugan, CMHC’s chief economist. “Total urban housing starts in 2017 were up 6.2% compared to 2016 due to the rise in apartment construction.”

Stats for Toronto

Overall, the pace of new home construction in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) remained virtually unchanged in 2017. Close to 39,000 homes broke ground this year, down 0.7% from 2016. Strong demand for new homes continued to be supported by improved employment conditions and strong migration. However, affordability challenges, tighter mortgage rules, increasing price gap with resale market alternatives, and a better-supplied resale market weighed on single-detached starts, which were down by 14% compared to 2016. Given escalating house prices, more homebuyers continued to shift their demand towards relatively more affordable housing options such as townhouses, and more affordable areas such as Brampton. Condominium apartment starts were down by 5% compared to 2016, nevertheless they continued to dominate new home construction thanks to strong demand from price-sensitive homebuyers and investors.

Measuring Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rates (SAAR)

CMHC uses the trend measure as a complement to the monthly SAAR of housing starts to account for considerable swings in monthly estimates and obtain a more complete picture of Canada’s housing market. In some situations analyzing only SAAR data can be misleading, as they are largely driven by the multi-unit segment of the market which can vary significantly from one month to the next.

The standalone monthly SAAR of housing starts for all areas in Canada was 216,980 units in December, down from 251,675 units in November. The SAAR of urban starts decreased by 15.1% in December to 198,132 units. Multiple urban starts decreased by 22% to 135,176 units in December. Single-detached urban starts increased by 4.7% to 62,956 units.

Rural starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 18,848 units.

Preliminary Housing Start Data in Centres 10,000 Population and Over
	Dec. 2016	Dec. 2017	%	Dec. 2016	Dec. 2017	%	Dec. 2016	Dec. 2017	%
	Single-Detached			All Others			Total
Provinces (10,000+)
N.-L.	70	77	10	18	56	211	88	133	51
P.E.I.	7	22	214	6	17	183	13	39	200
N.S.	117	110	-6	111	167	50	228	277	21
N.B.	47	60	28	52	103	98	99	163	65
Atlantic	241	269	12	187	343	83	428	612	43
Qc	536	542	1	2,645	4,101	55	3,181	4,643	46
Ont.	2,638	2,091	-21	3,789	2,858	-25	6,427	4,949	-23
Man.	143	223	56	110	351	219	253	574	127
Sask.	154	121	-21	174	194	11	328	315	-4
Alta.	909	984	8	1,054	703	-33	1,963	1,687	-14
Prairies	1,206	1,328	10	1,338	1,248	-7	2,544	2,576	1
B.C.	696	843	21	2,476	3,169	28	3,172	4,012	26
Canada (10,000+)	5,317	5,073	-5	10,435	11,719	12	15,752	16,792	7
Metropolitan Areas
Abbotsford-Mission	39	26	-33	27	13	-52	66	39	-41
Barrie	36	28	-22	0	43	##	36	71	97
Belleville	**	37	##	**	67	##	**	104	##
Brantford	11	11	–	10	2	-80	21	13	-38
Calgary	294	349	19	681	334	-51	975	683	-30
Edmonton	409	412	1	303	305	1	712	717	1
Greater Sudbury	14	6	-57	23	4	-83	37	10	-73
Guelph	17	18	6	17	0	-100	34	18	-47
Halifax	64	90	41	92	166	80	156	256	64
Hamilton	111	59	-47	655	268	-59	766	327	-57
Kelowna	81	84	4	235	177	-25	316	261	-17
Kingston	20	55	175	26	17	-35	46	72	57
Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo	120	57	-53	669	138	-79	789	195	-75
Lethbridge	**	45	##	**	22	##	**	67	##
London	112	150	34	81	52	-36	193	202	5
Moncton	18	13	-28	8	35	338	26	48	85
Montréal	206	232	13	1,696	3,151	86	1,902	3,383	78
Oshawa	39	117	200	81	18	-78	120	135	13
Ottawa-Gatineau	281	308	10	417	599	44	698	907	30
Gatineau	67	48	-28	105	48	-54	172	96	-44
Ottawa	214	260	21	312	551	77	526	811	54
Peterborough	25	32	28	0	24	##	25	56	124
Québec	51	52	2	265	390	47	316	442	40
Regina	43	29	-33	111	35	-68	154	64	-58
Saguenay	33	16	-52	15	30	100	48	46	-4
St. Catharines-Niagara	114	152	33	19	26	37	133	178	34
Saint John	8	12	50	3	26	##	11	38	245
St. John’s	61	62	2	17	39	129	78	101	29
Saskatoon	96	76	-21	46	144	213	142	220	55
Sherbrooke	18	32	78	77	52	-32	95	84	-12
Thunder Bay	4	3	-25	4	0	-100	8	3	-63
Toronto	1,350	767	-43	1,635	1,473	-10	2,985	2,240	-25
Trois-Rivières	21	12	-43	75	45	-40	96	57	-41
Vancouver	284	402	42	1,870	2,306	23	2,154	2,708	26
Victoria	67	70	4	79	134	70	146	204	40
Windsor	52	35	-33	39	2	-95	91	37	-59
Winnipeg	130	181	39	100	322	222	230	503	119
Total	4,229	4,030	-5	9,376	10,459	12	13,605	14,489	6

Data for 2016 based on 2011 Census Definitions.
Data for 2017 based on 2016 Census Definitions.
Source: Market Analysis Centre, CMHC

** Belleville and Lethbridge were not metropolitan areas in 2016.
## not calculable/extreme value

Preliminary Housing Start Data — Seasonally Adjusted at Annual Rates (SAAR)
	Nov. 2017	Dec. 2017	%	Nov. 2017	Dec. 2017	%	Nov. 2017	Dec. 2017	%
	Single-Detached			All Others			Total
Provinces (10,000+)
N.L.	574	772	34	783	678	-13	1,357	1,450	7
P.E.I.	270	410	52	660	204	-69	930	614	-34
N.S.	703	1,043	48	2,257	2,036	-10	2,960	3,079	4
N.B.	781	776	-1	1,259	1,661	32	2,040	2,437	19
Qc	6,835	6,729	-2	37,785	40,935	8	44,620	47,664	7
Ont.	23,504	24,403	4	70,552	36,515	-48	94,056	60,918	-35
Man.	2,538	3,062	21	3,888	4,212	8	6,426	7,274	13
Sask.	1,526	1,653	8	2,064	2,328	13	3,590	3,981	11
Alta.	11,466	12,402	8	21,095	8,702	-59	32,561	21,104	-35
B.C.	11,933	11,706	-2	32,957	37,905	15	44,890	49,611	11
Canada (10,000+)	60,130	62,956	5	173,300	135,176	-22	233,430	198,132	-15
Canada (All Areas)	73,999	77,693	5	177,675	139,286	-22	251,675	216,980	-14
Metropolitan Areas
Abbotsford-Mission	695	424	-39	1,344	156	-88	2,039	580	-72
Barrie	956	525	-45	876	516	-41	1,832	1,041	-43
Belleville	483	402	-17	216	804	272	699	1,206	73
Brantford	139	137	-1	24	24	–	163	161	-1
Calgary	4,197	4,206	0	13,368	4,008	-70	17,565	8,214	-53
Edmonton	4,418	5,432	23	6,312	3,660	-42	10,730	9,092	-15
Greater Sudbury	156	85	-46	72	48	-33	228	133	-42
Guelph	270	319	18	3,000	0	-100	3,270	319	-90
Halifax	666	957	44	2,052	1,992	-3	2,718	2,949	8
Hamilton	763	782	2	4,392	3,216	-27	5,155	3,998	-22
Kelowna	854	934	9	1,740	2,124	22	2,594	3,058	18
Kingston	93	581	##	132	204	55	225	785	249
Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo	935	829	-11	6,840	1,656	-76	7,775	2,485	-68
Lethbridge	455	429	-6	72	264	267	527	693	31
London	1,879	2,116	13	5,736	624	-89	7,615	2,740	-64
Moncton	187	183	-2	1,092	420	-62	1,279	603	-53
Montréal	2,802	2,885	3	22,993	37,492	63	25,795	40,377	57
Oshawa	1,502	1,554	3	2,256	216	-90	3,758	1,770	-53
Ottawa-Gatineau	2,766	3,427	24	9,444	7,188	-24	12,210	10,615	-13
Gatineau	500	667	33	396	576	45	896	1,243	39
Ottawa	2,266	2,760	22	9,048	6,612	-27	11,314	9,372	-17
Peterborough	197	371	88	0	288	##	197	659	235
Québec	729	688	-6	11,700	4,680	-60	12,429	5,368	-57
Regina	396	419	6	1,224	420	-66	1,620	839	-48
Saguenay	244	229	-6	492	360	-27	736	589	-20
St. Catharines-Niagara	1,199	1,561	30	1,584	312	-80	2,783	1,873	-33
Saint John	261	146	-44	24	312	##	285	458	61
St. John’s	402	580	44	624	468	-25	1,026	1,048	2
Saskatoon	893	1,005	13	720	1,728	140	1,613	2,733	69
Sherbrooke	260	391	50	1,560	624	-60	1,820	1,015	-44
Thunder Bay	148	65	-56	144	0	-100	292	65	-78
Toronto	8,907	8,224	-8	36,168	17,676	-51	45,075	25,900	-43
Trois-Rivières	173	143	-17	420	540	29	593	683	15
Vancouver	6,128	5,876	-4	24,864	27,672	11	30,992	33,548	8
Victoria	836	1,075	29	1,344	1,608	20	2,180	2,683	23
Windsor	568	518	-9	1,152	24	-98	1,720	542	-68
Winnipeg	1,897	2,559	35	3,492	3,864	11	5,389	6,423	19

Data based on 2016 Census Definitions.
Source: Market Analysis Centre, CMHC
## not calculable / extreme value

Housing Trend Stable in December