CMHC: February Housing Starts in Vancouver

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - March 8, 2011) - Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) reports that there were 1,414 housing starts in the Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) in February, a slight increase from the same month a year ago. Strength in multiple unit housing starts, which include apartments, town homes and semi-detached homes, accounted for the majority of housing starts.

"Over 85 per cent of housing starts were multi-family in February," noted Robyn Adamache, CMHC's Senior Market Analyst. "The majority of these starts were in Richmond, Coquitlam, and Surrey, areas with easy access to major transportation routes and public transit and home prices that are less expensive than found in the urban core, specifically the City of Vancouver."

The Abbotsford CMA had 25 housing starts in February, down slightly from 37 starts recorded during the same month a year ago.

Nationally, the seasonally adjusted annual rate¹ of total housing starts increased to 181,900 units in February, from 170,600 units in January. In British Columbia, February's seasonally adjusted rate of urban housing starts moved lower to 24,100 units from 25,600 units in the previous month.

As Canada's national housing agency, CMHC draws on 65 years of experience to help Canadians access a variety of quality, environmentally sustainable and affordable homes. CMHC also provides reliable, impartial and up-to-date housing market reports, analysis and knowledge to support and assist consumers and the housing industry in making vital decisions.

For more information, and to download CMHC's housing reports, please visit CMHC's website at www.cmhc.ca/housingmarketinformation or call 1-800-668-2642.

Preliminary housing starts numbers are summarized in the attached tables.

To view the map and tables accompanying this press release please click on the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/cmhc38.pdf

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¹ Seasonally-adjusted annual rates (SAARs) are monthly housing starts figures adjusted to remove normal seasonal variation and multiplied by 12 to reflect annual levels. This facilitates the comparison of the current pace of activity to annual forecasts as well as to historical annual levels.