Home construction picks up in July, driven by buildings, condos, CMHC says

The federal housing agency says home construction picked up last month.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts increased to 222,324 units in July, up from 212,948 in June.

The annual pace of urban home construction increased by 5.5 per cent to 206,122 units, driven by a rise in multiple urban starts, generally apartment buildings, townhouses and condominiums, while single, detached home starts slowed.

Multiple urban starts increased by 10.4 per cent to 141,950 while single-detached urban starts fell by 3.9 per cent to 64,172.

Rural starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 16,202 units.

The six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates increased to 217,550 in July compared with 215,175 in June.

The data on housing starts came as Statistics Canada also reported the value of building permits issued in June rose to $8.1 billion, up 2.5 per cent from May and the second highest value on record.

The overall increase came despite a 0.9 per cent drop to $5.0 billion in residential building permits in June. Building permits for non-residential structures rose 8.8 per cent to $3.0 billion.

The Canadian Press

source : CMHC