Ashley Ford
Sun
(Peter) Simpson
B.C. housing starts, powered by low mortgage rates, charged ahead by 29 per cent last year — outperforming the national average building surge of 25 per cent, which was the highest level since 1989.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said yesterday there were 20,302 B.C. housing starts last year, up from 15,689 a year earlier. More than two-thirds of the activity took place across the Lower Mainland.
Peter Simpson, chief operating officer of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders Association, said starts exceeded the forecast by more than 2,000.
More importantly, he said, they created an additional 6,538 full-time construction-related jobs last year.
“We are confident this positive trend will continue through 2003,” Simpson said.
Cameron Muir, senior CMHC analyst in Vancouver, said residential construction was “the bright light in the B.C economy during 2002.”
And even better times could be ahead, provided the U.S. economy rebounds and there is an end to the softwood-lumber dispute, Muir said.
“With mortgage rates expected to remain low by historic standards, significant pent-up demand still evident and low inventories of both new and resale homes, strong growth can be expected in home construction over this year,” he said.
In the Lower Mainland, starts surged by 21.5 per cent last year. There were 13,197 starts compared with 10,862 a year earlier.
Other areas of the province also performed well, in spite of the frail economy.
Single-family-home starts in the Fraser Valley jumped 52 per cent to 3,668 units and multiples rose 76 per cent to 2,472 units.
In Abbotsford, there was a huge resurgence in multiple-unit construction. Last year, 480 units were built compared to only eight in 2001.
In Kelowna, starts surged 44.2 per cent; in Prince George, they jumped 29.9 per cent.
Surprisingly, a fall-off in multiple-unit construction in Victoria saw total starts creep ahead by just 6.3 per cent, although single-family construction jumped a healthy 39.1 per cent.
Across Canada, housing starts last year hit 204,857, up a whopping 25.9 per cent from 2001. That’s the highest annual growth rate since 1983 and the highest level of starts since 1989.
Housing starts are generally viewed as a leading economic indicator and, despite a slight cooling trend toward the end of last year, are expected to remain strong nationally.
However they are expected to taper off and average between 170,000 and 180,000 units for the year as a whole.
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