Joannah Connolly
Other
Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) housing starts were trending at 20,271 units in August, up 11 per cent compared with July, according to data released September 9 by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
The August trend, which is a measure of a six-month moving average of seasonally adjusted annual rates, compares with a drop in starts in June to 18,423 from May’s 19,000, followed by a further slight drop in July to 18,345 units.
“Multiple-family housing starts accounted for much of the uptick in August,” said Robyn Adamache, CMHC’s senior market analyst. “Larger condominium apartment projects in Richmond and Burnaby were the most significant contributors to the August numbers.”
Across British Columbia, starts were trending at 27,511 units in August, an increase of eight per cent compared with July after remaining relatively flat compared with June.
CMHC said it uses six-month moving averages to account for considerable swings in monthly estimates and obtain a more complete picture of the state of the housing market. In some situations, said the CMHC, analyzing only the monthly seasonally adjusted data can be misleading in some markets, as they can be variable from one month to the next.
The news comes on the heels of a September 8 building permits report by Statistics Canada, which said that a rise in Vancouver and BC permits in July was driven by multi-family condo construction.
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