August’s Canadian Housing Starts Increased

National Housing Starts Trend

The national trend in housing starts increased for a third consecutive month in August. Higher multi-family starts in Ontario, including Toronto, drove the national increase. We expect national starts to trend lower by the end of 2020 as a result of the negative impact of COVID-19 on economic and housing indicators.

Standalone Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR)

• The standalone monthly SAAR of housing starts for all areas in Canada was 262,396 units in August, an increase of 6.9% from 245,425 units in July.
• The SAAR of urban starts increased by 7.1% in August to 248,154 units.
• Multiple urban starts increased by 9.1% to 201,214 units in August while single-detached urban starts decreased by 1.0% to 46,940 units.

About Housing Starts

Like many other government organizations, businesses and individuals, we are closely following developments around COVID-19. The monthly release of our Preliminary Housing Starts data will continue as planned. CMHC will report any impact on our ability to collect housing data.

We track housing starts to gain insight into housing supply.

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:

• usually, the stage when the concrete has been poured for the whole of the footing around the structure; or
• an equivalent stage where a basement will not be part of the structure.

About SAAR

The time of year can be a factor when collecting data.

We use a rate adjustment to remove the data’s seasonal variations. We then multiply the seasonally adjusted level of starts by 12 to obtain the Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of housing starts. 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.

CMHC uses the 6-month average SAAR with the monthly SAAR of housing starts to obtain a more complete picture of trends in the market. 

Providing information on housing starts is another way CMHC supports you in making decisions on housing affordability and contributes to the stability of housing markets in Canada.

Related links

• Housing Market Outlook
• Housing Market Assessment
• Housing Market Insights
• Housing Information Monthly
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