Housing construction dips in Atlantic Canada
Housing construction slowed down in Atlantic Canadian urban centres last month, according to to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Their latest batch of statistics released on Wednesday show Atlantic Canada saw 6,088 housing starts in August, down from 8,860 in July.
But it wasn’t just the Atlantic region. British Columbia, the Prairies and Quebec also experienced a decrease in their seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban starts. Only Ontario experienced an increase from 48,903 in July to 92,422 in August.
“Housing starts have been trending up, supported by strong condominium activity in Toronto. This is in line with CMHC’s most recent forecasts that would see demand shift from new higher-priced single-detached homes towards lower-priced alternatives,” said Bob Dugan, CMHC’s Chief Economist, in a release. “While national starts have increased, housing construction has started to slow in Alberta and Saskatchewan as a result of weakening economic conditions related to the decline of oil prices.”
Nationally, there was 216,924 units in August, up from 193,253 units in July. The Urban starts increased by 13.6 per cent in August to 201,312 units. Multi-unit urban starts increased by 19.5 per cent to 142,927 units in August and the single-detached urban starts segment increased by 1.4 per cent to 58,385 units.