In November, Canadian housing starts continued to tick upwards, following a 5% increase in September and an 8% rise in October, according to data from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
On a seasonally-adjusted basis, housing starts across Canada were up 8% month-over-month in November from 242,207 units in October to 262,443 units. Year-to-date, starts rose 3% from 204,920 units between January-November 2023 to the current 210,912 after last month saw a "historically busy" period with 22,345 actual starts.
CMHC attributes the growth to a rise in multi-unit starts across Québec, Alberta, and BC, but warns that current numbers still fall short of new builds needed to restore housing affordability. "While Alberta, Québec and the Atlantic provinces are still pushing the national year-to-date starts higher, Canada still needs major increases in supply growth to restore affordability in our urban centres,” says Mathieu Laberge, CMHC’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of Market Insights.
CMHC
For urban centres with populations over 10,000, the growth was slightly amplified, with seasonally-adjusted monthly housing starts rising 9% from 223,111 units in October to 245,083 units. This was largely driven by multi-unit urban starts, which increased by 11% from 175,705 to 195,281 units, while single-detached urban starts increased 4% from 47,406 to 49,802 units. As for rural starts, there was a total of 17,360 units, down from 17,650 units in October.
Geographically, the largest month-over-month gains were posted in Montreal, which saw an astounding 143% increase in housing starts, and Vancouver, which saw a healthy 52% increase. Both cities are "significantly up" compared to last November, while actual starts in Toronto remain flat.
Along the same vein, Montreal was leading on a year-to-date basis, with a 22% increase from its "historically low" numbers in 2023. But on the flip side, Vancouver and Toronto are still down 14% and 20% respectively from their "historically high" 2023 totals.
