Housing starts up in July

Housing starts in Canada were trending at 187,416 units in July, compared to 182,142 in June, says the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

“The trend in total housing starts continued to be relatively stable in July, remaining within a narrow range of roughly 182,000 to 188,000 units since March 2013,” says Mathieu Laberge, deputy chief economist at CMHC.

Read: U.S. new home sales rise

He adds, “For the past few months, total housing starts have followed the stabilizing trend observed in sales of existing homes earlier this year. As expected, the trends in the two market segments typically follow a similar pattern, with the new home market lagging behind the existing home market by a few months.”

CMHC says it uses the trend measure as a complement to the monthly SAAR of housing starts. That practice helps account for considerable swings in monthly estimates, and obtains a more accurate picture of the housing market.

It adds analyzing only SAAR (seasonally adjusted annual rates) data can be misleading in some markets (those that are largely driven by multiples segment of the market can be extremely volatile from one month to the next).

The standalone monthly SAAR for July was 192,853 units, relatively unchanged from 193,797 in June. The SAAR of urban starts fell by 2.1% to 173,042 units, mostly reflecting a decline in the single starts segments in July—more specifically, single urban starts dipped by 5.5% to 58,731 units last month, while the multiple urban starts segment essentially held steady at 114,311 units.

July’s seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban starts rose in B.C., but decreased in all other regions across Canada.

Read:

Canadian home sales rise (June)

Banks will survive housing crash

Staff

The staff of Advisor.ca have been covering news for financial advisors since 1998.