For the year to date, there were small increases in the total for single and multiple occupancy homes.
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New-home construction slowed again in July after two consecutive monthly increases, new housing-starts data shows.
“Multi-unit projects are driving starts higher in Vernon”, said Taylor Pardy, CMHC senior market analyst. Construction has started on 1,099 homes in 2016 compared to 1,339 past year, with the drop due exclusively to multi-family units.
While the actual number of starts was down, CMHC said starts were still trending upward for the month, at 3,993 units compared to 3,598 in June.
The expected fallback in housing starts was broadly based, according to the report, with groundbreaking on new detached homes down by a more modest 1.8 per cent, and starts falling in all regions of Canada except the Prairies.
Housing starts in the first seven months of the year totalled 2,082, up from 1,677 in the same period a year ago.
CMHC also said the seasonally-adjusted annualized rate of housing starts declined to 198,395 in July, down from a revised 218,326 in June.
The housing starts trend in the Gatineau area picked up in July.
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.
Multi-family starts were down, with 65 starts during the month, off from the 80 starts in July 2015.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reported Tuesday that Canadian housing starts fell in July from June, as construction of multiple units – typically condos – fell 13.3%after an unexpectedly large gain in June.
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Urban starts for all types of dwellings fell 9.9 per cent to 182,620 units nationally, with decreases in Quebec, British Columbia, Ontario and Atlantic Canada.
