December 2016 Housing Starts in Quebec

MONTRÉAL, QUÉBEC--(Marketwired - Jan. 10, 2017) - Housing starts in Quebec were trending at 32,201 units in December, compared to 32,238 units in November, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR) of housing starts.

The pace of housing starts remained relatively unchanged in December. Annual results, for their part, showed a slight decrease in housing starts for all of the province's urban centres, with a total of 32,528 units in 2016, down 1.5 per cent from 2015. "This decrease primarily resulted from a slowdown in the multi-unit housing segment. As for single-detached housing starts, they stabilized at a level that remains low from a historical standpoint," said Kevin Hughes, Regional Economist at CMHC.

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, analyzing 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 stand-alone monthly SAAR was 33,629 units in December, up from 29,898 in November.

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

As Canada's authority on housing, CMHC contributes to the stability of the housing market and financial system, provides support for Canadians in housing need, and offers objective housing research and information to Canadian governments, consumers and the housing industry.

For more information, visit our website at www.cmhc.ca or follow us on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Additional data is available upon request.

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Tables and a graph are available at the following address: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1082137a.pdf