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- Monthly Housing Starts
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Housing starts are an economic indicator that reflect the number of residential housing projects that have been started over a specific length of time. These data are divided into 3 types: single-family houses, townhouses or small condos and apartment buildings with 5 or more units.
April monthly housing starts key highlights
- The trend in housing starts increased by 2.4% in April to 240,905 units.
- The trend measure is a 6-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of total housing starts for all areas in Canada.
- Actual housing starts were up 17% year-over-year in centres with a population of 10,000 or greater, with 21,720 units recorded in April 2025, compared to 18,539 in April 2024.
- Montréal posted a 64% year-over-year increase in actual housing starts compared to April 2024, primarily driven by an increase in multi-unit starts.
- Vancouver recorded a 6% increase in starts this month, also driven by higher multi-unit starts.
- A decrease in multi-unit starts drove the 25% year-over-year decrease in Toronto's housing starts compared to last April.
April Standalone Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR)
- The total monthly standalone seasonally adjusted rate of housing starts for all areas in Canada increased by 30% in April to 278,606 units compared to 214,205 units in March.
- The seasonally adjusted annual rate of total urban housing starts in centers with populations of 10,000 or more was 28% higher at 259,788 units compared to 202,668 units in March.
- Rural starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 18,818 units.
- Author:
- CMHC
- Document Type:
- Excel
- Date Published:
- May 15, 2025
Our Monthly Housing Starts and Other Construction data tables are issued on the 11th working day of the month. Exact release dates can be found in our Reports Calendar.
You can also view this data on our Housing Market Information Portal.
About Monthly Housing Starts and Construction Data
A housing start is defined as the beginning of construction work on the building where the dwelling unit will be located. This can be described in 2 ways:
- The stage when the concrete has been poured for the whole of the footing around the structure.
- An equivalent stage where a basement will not be part of the structure.
Housing starts statistics are organized to facilitate an analysis of monthly, quarterly and year-over-year changes. Actual and seasonally-adjusted housing starts data are presented separately. Select under construction and absorption data are also included.
Housing starts, construction and absorption data are used to gain insight into the level of activity and supply conditions in the new home market.
Actual and seasonally adjusted housing starts data are presented separately by region, province, Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) and dwelling type. Select data on under construction and absorption are also included.
These monthly housing data tables reflect:
- current statistics
- new home starts
- construction activity
Data source: CMHC Starts and Completions Survey and Market Absorption Survey.
About the Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR)
The SAAR allows you to compare monthly levels to annual levels for different months of the year. It also gives you a sense of the relative strength of monthly activity.
The time of year can be a factor when collecting data. We calculate the SAAR by:
- Using a rate adjustment to remove the data’s seasonal variations.
- Multiplying the seasonally adjusted level of starts by 12 to obtain the Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of housing starts.
