According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), housing starts in the country accelerated in June compared to May, rising 18% in Quebec.
The number of housing starts in the country stood at 234,974 in June, up 2.4% from 229,520 in the previous month, according to data released on Tuesday.
In Quebec, the month-on-month increase was 18%, for a total of 25,049 housing starts in June 2023.
“Across all regions of the country, monthly seasonally adjusted and annualized housing starts increased 41% in June (281,373) compared to May (200,018), representing the largest change. Monthly Seasonally Adjusted Annualized (SAD) data over the last 10 years,” CMHC said.
This increase is mainly due to new construction of apartment buildings, which account for about 82% of all new construction.
The Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) of Vancouver and Toronto posted the largest gains in June, up 71% and 100%, respectively. Housing starts in Toronto and Vancouver alone accounted for 47% of total housing starts in Canada’s urban centers in June.
The Montréal CMA also saw an increase in DDAs, albeit less significantly than that of the other two CMAs, namely 8%.
“We saw a sharp increase in DDAs for housing starts in June. […] However, year-to-date housing starts were 8% lower in the first half of 2023 than in the same period of 2022. The decline was driven by persistently high interest rates. Taking a toll on housing starts due to higher borrowing costs,” said Bob Dugan, chief economist at CMHC.