Canadian home construction picks up, but projects in the pipeline plunge

OTTAWA – The pace of housing starts in Canada for February acquired, boosted with a jump in multiple-unit homes for example condominiums, apartments and townhouses.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the seasonally adjusted annual pace for housing starts in February increased to 212,594 units, up from 165,071 in January.

Economists had expected an annual pace of 180,000, based on Thomson Reuters.

Related

CMHC revs up search for flows of foreign money into Canada’s torrid housing marketMillionaire boomers decamp Vancouver pocketing housing windfalls as city becomes a ‘commodity’Luxury housing industry shows no indications of reducing in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal

The increase came as multiple-unit urban starts increased by 46.0 per cent to 138,774 units, while single-detached urban starts increased by 6.1 per cent to 61,457 units.



Rural starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 12,363.

Regionally, the interest rate of urban starts in February increased in Bc, Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic Canada when they decreased within the Prairies.

Data out today also demonstrated that the need for Canadian building permits issued in January dropped by 9.8 percent from December, the 2nd sharp retreat in three months, Statistics Canada said .

The fall exceeded the two.5 percent decline forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll. Statscan revised December’s gain right down to 7.7 percent from an initial 11.3 per cent and November’s drop to 12.1 percent from 19.9 per cent.

A 21.0 percent reduction in construction intentions for multi-family dwellings, concentrated in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia, was the main reason for that weaker performance in January.
Overall, the need for residential permits sank by 12.5 percent from December. Non-residential building permits came by 4.8 per cent on lower construction intentions for educational institutions, nursing facilities and other government buildings.

The overall worth of permits issued within the energy-producing province of Alberta, hit hard by slumping crude prices, fell by 5.3 % in January after gaining 3.9 percent in December.

With files from Canadian Press and Reuters