Housing starts slow in April: CMHC

By Staff, with files from The Canadian Press | May 8, 2018 | Last updated on May 8, 2018
1 min read

The annual pace of housing starts in April slowed compared with March, said the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate of new home construction, which is seen as a measure of the health of the housing market, fell to 214,379 units in April compared with 225,459 in March.

The move came as the pace of starts in urban areas fell 4.7% in April to 198,090.

The rate of multiple urban starts, which includes apartments, townhouses and condominiums, fell 2.7% to 141,032, while the rate of single-detached urban starts dropped 9.3% to 57,058.

Rural starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 16,289.

Read: Housing starts fell in March: CMHC

The six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates edged down to 225,696 in April compared with 226,942 in March.

Weather might have been a factor in the slower housing starts, said Royce Mendes, senior economist at CIBC World Markets, in a note.

“That said, activity is likely to cool over the remainder of the year, with homebuilders’ costs rising and the housing market no longer running at such a torrid pace,” he wrote. “Little market reaction expected.

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Staff, with files from The Canadian Press

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