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Canadian housing starts jumped 18% in December

Click to play video: 'Business Matters: Canada’s housing market closed out 2023 with a bang'
Business Matters: Canada’s housing market closed out 2023 with a bang
Even though 2023 was widely viewed as a tough year for real estate prices across Canada, new data from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) shows home prices ended the year slightly more than 5 per cent higher than the previous year. In Business Matters for Jan. 15, Anne Gaviola has more on what was behind the sudden surge in December. – Jan 15, 2024

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the annual pace of housing starts in December rose 18 per cent compared with November, helped higher by an increase in multi-unit urban starts in Vancouver and Montreal.

The national housing agency says the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts for December was 249,255 units, up from 210,918 in November.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate for December for urban housing starts rose 20 per cent to 234,705 as the pace of multi-unit urban starts increased 26 per cent to 191,463. The rate of single-detached urban starts fell two per cent to 43,242.

Click to play video: 'Trudeau announces $471M for Toronto to help fast-track housing construction'
Trudeau announces $471M for Toronto to help fast-track housing construction

The annual pace of rural starts was estimated at 14,550 for December.

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The six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates of housing starts in December was 249,898, down 2.1 per cent from 255,198 in November.

For the full year, CMHC says actual urban housing starts in 2023 were down seven per cent at 223,513, compared with 240,590 in 2022, as single-detached home starts fell 25 per cent last year.

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