Condo surge ignites pick up in February housing starts

OTTAWA – The pace of housing starts in Canada for February picked up, boosted by a jump in multiple-unit homes such as condominiums, apartments and townhouses.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the seasonally adjusted annual pace for housing starts in February increased to 212,594 units, up sharply from 165,071 in January.

Economists had expected an annual pace of 180,000, according to Thomson Reuters.

The increase came as multiple-unit urban starts — condos — increased by 46.0 per cent to 138,774 units, while single-detached urban starts increased by 6.1 per cent to 61,457 units.

MORE: Whatever happened to Toronto’s condo bubble? 

Rural starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 12,363.

Regionally, the pace of urban starts in February increased in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic Canada while they decreased in the Prairies.

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