October Housing Starts in Vancouver CMA

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Nov. 8, 2011) - Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) reports increased October housing starts in the Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) compared to the same month a year ago, maintaining a balance between demand and supply conditions for new homes. Most of the home starts in October were in Surrey, Langley, and Burnaby.

"So far this year, housing starts have been strong, higher than the same period last year," noted Robyn Adamache, CMHC's Senior Market Analyst. "Multi family construction, including purpose-built rental projects, led the way during the first ten months of the year. Most construction during the first ten months of the year was in the cities of Vancouver, Richmond, and Surrey."

Nationally, the seasonally adjusted annual rate¹ of total housing starts decreased to 207,600 units in October, from 208,800 units in September. In British Columbia, October's seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban housing starts moved slightly higher to 27,800 units from 27,400 units in the previous month.

As Canada's national housing agency, CMHC draws on more than 65 years of experience to help Canadians access a variety of high 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.

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.

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 adjustment facilitates the comparison of the current pace of activity to annual forecasts as well as to historic annual levels.

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To see the tables and map associated with this release, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/cmhc118i.pdf.