January 2017 Housing Starts in Ottawa

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Feb. 8, 2017) - Housing starts in the Ottawa Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) were trending at 6,565 units in January compared to 5,991 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) of housing starts.

"Housing starts trended higher in January compared to the previous month mostly due to a rise in condominium apartment starts. The seasonally adjusted number of condominium apartments under construction has declined to 1,400, approximately 60 per cent lower than its peak in January 2014. This, together with solid employment growth in 2016 may have encouraged some builders to initiate new projects. Still, builders will need to monitor the high level of apartment inventories when considering launching new projects in the future," said Anne-Marie Shaker, CMHC's Senior Market Analyst for Ottawa.

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.

In Ottawa, the monthly SAAR measure was 7,904 in January up from 6,220 in December mostly due to an increase in apartment starts.

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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To view the graph and tables associated with this release, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1085145a_Tables_Graph.pdf