December 2012 Housing Starts in St. Catharines-Niagara

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Jan. 9, 2013) - Housing starts in St. Catharines-Niagara, Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) were trending at 1,331 units in December, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The trend is a six month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR)¹ of housing starts. The standalone monthly SAAR was 2,718 units in December, up from 1,244 in November.

"Monthly housing starts were up significantly in December", said Paul Tessaro, CMHC's Market Analyst for St. Catharines-Niagara. "The high rate of construction activity in December raised housing starts for 2012 just above 2011 starts. At the end of November 2012, starts were only at 89 per cent of year-to-date starts in 2011. The increase in starts in December was primarily due to apartment construction."

CMHC uses the trend measure as a complement to the monthly SAAR of housing starts to account for considerable swings in monthly estimates and obtain a more complete picture of the state of the housing market. In some situations, analysing only SAAR data can be misleading in some markets, as they are largely driven by the multiples segment of the markets which can be quite variable from one month to the next. The multiples segment includes apartments, rows and semi-detached homes

Single-detached starts added 63 actual units in December 2012. Multiple starts totalled 158 actual units in December. Year-to-date starts have reached 1,137 actual units, with single-detached construction representing roughly 60 per cent of all starts.

Preliminary Housing Starts data is also available in English and French at the following link: Preliminary Housing Starts Tables.

As Canada's national housing agency, CMHC draws on more than 65 years of experience to help Canadians access a variety of quality, environmentally sustainable and affordable housing solutions. 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 informed decisions.

Follow CMHC on Twitter @CMHC_ca.

¹ All starts figures in this release, other than actual starts and the trend estimate, are seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR) - that is, monthly figures adjusted to remove normal seasonal variation and multiplied by 12 to reflect annual levels. By removing seasonal ups and downs, seasonal adjustment allows for a comparison from one season to the next and from one month to the next. Reporting monthly figures at annual rates indicates the annual level of starts that would be obtained if the monthly pace was maintained for 12 months. This facilitates comparison of the current pace of activity to annual forecasts as well as to historical annual levels.

Additional data is available upon request.

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To view the tables and graph associated with this press release, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/a845519.pdf.