Monthly Housing Starts and Other Construction Data Tables

Excel - Publication

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 was 240,403 units in April 2023, down from 240,876 units in March.
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.
The Vancouver, Toronto and Montréal census metropolitan areas all recorded an increase in total SAAR housing starts in April. Vancouver was up 36%, Toronto 54% and Montréal 43%.
Both Toronto and Montréal recorded declines in single-detached starts that were offset by large increases in multi-unit starts. Vancouver posted increases in both segments.

April Standalone Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR)

The standalone monthly SAAR of total housing starts for all areas in Canada in April was 261,559 units, an increase of 22% from March.
The SAAR of total urban starts increased by 26% in March to 241,585 units.
Multi-unit urban starts increased by 33 % to 201,621 units in April.
Single-detached urban starts decreased by 2% to 39,964 units.
Rural starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 19,974 units.

Geography: Edition:

Author:: CMHC
Document Type:: Excel
Date Published:: May 15, 2023

Download

Our Monthly Housing Starts and Other Construction data tables are issued on the 11^th 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.