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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.
May monthly housing starts key highlights
- The trend in housing starts was flat at 0.8% in May, at 243,407 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 9% year-over-year in centres with a population of 10,000 or greater, with 23,745 units recorded in May 2025, compared to 21,814 in May 2024.
- Montréal posted an 11% year-over-year increase in actual housing starts compared to May 2024, driven by more multi-unit starts.
- Vancouver recorded a 10% decrease in starts this month, driven primarily by lower multi-unit starts.
- A decrease in multi-unit starts also drove the 22% year-over-year decrease in Toronto's housing starts compared to May 2024.
New housing starts revisions data
- In the third quarter of 2024, revisions totaled a net positive 87 units on an original total housing starts of 58,439 units.
- In the fourth quarter of 2024, housing starts revisions totaled a net positive 17 units on an original total housing starts of 58,934 units.
- Housing starts revisions cover all urban centres of 10,000 population or more, reported at the Census Subdivision level on a quarterly basis.
May Standalone Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR)
- The total monthly standalone seasonally adjusted rate of housing starts for all areas in Canada was flat at -0.2% in May, at 279,510 units compared to 280,181 units in April.
- The seasonally adjusted annual rate of total urban housing starts in centers with populations of 10,000 or more was also flat at 259,80 units compared to 259,916 units in April.
- Rural starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 19,706 units.
- Author:
- CMHC
- Document Type:
- Excel
- Date Published:
- June 16, 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.
