Canadian Housing Starts Trend Lower in January

On Thursday, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) reported that the total seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) for housing starts for all areas in Canada decreased 10% in January to 223,589 units, down from 248,968 units in December 2023.

The six-month trend in housing starts decreased from 249,757 units in December 2023 to 244,827 units in January, a decline of 2.0%. The “trend” measure is a six-month moving average of the monthly SAAR of housing starts for all areas in Canada.

Despite these declines, the actual number of starts across Canada in centers of 10,000 population or more was up 13% to 14,878 units in January compared to 13,220 units in January 2023. The year-over-year increase was driven by high multi-unit starts.

The rural starts monthly SAAR estimate was 15,740 units.

In remarks accompanying the CMHC housing report, CMHC Chief Economist Bob Dugan said:

“The SAAR of housing starts declined in January, pushing the trend down for the second consecutive month. Despite the trend performance, actual starts saw strong year-over-year growth, driven by high multi-unit starts, particularly in Toronto. In fact, from a historical perspective, we observed the second highest number of housing starts for the month of January going back to 1990.”