Monthly Housing Starts and Other Construction Data Tables

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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.

August Monthly Housing Starts key highlights

The trend in housing starts was flat at 244,507 units in August 2023, up only 0.8% from 242,552 units in July.
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.
In Toronto, new home construction increased by 28% compared to last year. In Vancouver, it went up by 47%. This means that only Ontario and British Columbia have seen more new homes built in Canada this year.

August Standalone Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR)

The standalone monthly SAAR of total housing starts for all areas in Canada in August was 252,787 units, a decrease of 1% from July.
The SAAR of total urban starts decreased by 1% in August to 233,075 units.
Multi-unit urban starts decreased by 1% to 191,250 units in August.
Single-detached urban starts increased by 2% to 41,825 units.
Rural starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 19,712 units.

Geography: Edition:

Author:: CMHC
Document Type:: Excel
Date Published:: September 18, 2023

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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.