Canadian housing starts cooled more than expected in August, while the previous month was also revised slightly lower, data showed on Tuesday. A report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp showed the seasonally adjusted annualized rate of housing starts slipped to 192,368 last month from a downwardly revised 199,813 units in July. The small drop brought the six-month moving average to 189,837, little changed in the last 12 months.
Housing Starts, Canada
The three-month trend for starts is 189,800, little changed from July’s 189,600 – a pace considered slightly above the rate of annual new household formation.
The drop was nearly across the board, as single-unit starts fell 3.3 per cent and multiple units, typically condominiums, dipped 4 per cent, said CMHC. Both rural and urban starts declined.
Starts dropped 26 per cent in the urban districts of Ontario, the nation’s largest province, to 49,685 units. They rose 31 per cent to 33,631 units in British Columbia.
Urban starts for multiple-unit housing fell 4 percent to 110,842 units, and single-family projects declined 3.3 percent to 64,826 units.
July’s softness was led by a big drop in starts in Ontario and the Atlantic, with a smaller decline in Quebec. Starts rose sharply in the Prairie provinces and in British Columbia.