Toronto Housing Starts Moderate in May

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - June 8, 2012) - The number of housing starts for the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area was trending at 48,000 units in May, according to preliminary housing starts data released today by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The trend is a moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR)¹ total starts data. The standalone monthly SAAR was 41,500 units, down from 69,600 units in April.

"New home construction in Toronto returned to a more normal pace following a couple of exceptional months for condominium apartment starts," said Shaun Hildebrand, CMHC's Senior Market Analyst for the GTA. "Housing starts have been elevated this year due to a large number of condo sales centre openings in 2011 and strong demand for new homes amidst relatively low resale listings" added Hildebrand.

For some markets, CMHC uses the trend measure as a complement to the monthly SAAR of housing starts to account for considerable swings in monthly estimates and to obtain a more complete picture of the state of the housing market. Analyzing only SAAR data can be misleading in some markets in some situations as they are largely driven by the multiples segment of the markets which can be quite volatile from one month to the next.

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, visit www.cmhc.ca or call 1-800-668-2642. CMHC Market Analysis standard reports are also available free for download at CMHC Housing Market Information.

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¹ Seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR) are monthly figures adjusted to remove normal seasonal variation and multiplied by 12 to reflect annual levels.

To view the figures associated with this press release, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/May_2012_Toronto.pdf.