Since September, housing starts have been on the rise across Canada but Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) continues to flag the fact that we are still far behind meeting demand, let alone restoring affordability. In their January housing starts report, CMHC takes a look at the past year in housing starts and a lacklustre December.
In 2024, actual housing starts in Canada, including urban and rural, were up 2% compared to 2023. This totalled 245,120 home construction starts, driven mostly by "historically high rental construction levels and overall increased starts in Alberta, Québec, and the Atlantic provinces."
But across the country's six largest cities, where population is growing the fastest and housing is most needed, housing starts fell 3% year over year. The drop was largely due to a lack of multi-unit starts in Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa, which saw low pre-construction condominium sales. The converse was true for Calgary, Edmonton, and Montréal, where multi-unit rental starts were relatively strong.
CMHC
“Canada’s urban centres saw an uptick in housing starts in 2024 compared to last year, marking the third-highest year on record.” said Mathieu Laberge, CMHC’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of Market Insights. "While this annual increase shows some signs of progress, Canada still needs significantly higher supply growth to restore affordability in urban centres. Last Spring, we estimated Canada could build up to 400,000 new housing units annually, based on current resources devoted to residential construction."
Closing out the year, the six-month housing trend was flat at 242,637 units, down a slight 0.7%. In cities with populations over 10,000, the seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) for housing starts fell 14% in December to 214,000 units from 245,083 units in November, and in all areas, housing starts fell 13% to 231,468 units, compared to 267,140 units in November.
Month over month, multi-unit urban starts dropped by 15% from 195,281 units to 168,515 units, while single-detached urban starts decreased 10% from 49,802 units to 45,485 units in December. In rural areas, there were 17,468 SAAR housing starts, up from 17,360 units in November.
