It has been said that analysis of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation housing starts data is akin to looking in the rearview mirror, and while that sounds a little derogatory, it’s not at all. As Canada’s national housing agency, CMHC does a great job tracking housing markets across Canada, releasing local, provincial and national housing starts data on a monthly basis.
Earlier this week, CMHC released information on housing starts in July, noting that the seasonally-adjusted annual rate of total housing starts for the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area increased by 13 per cent to 50,300 units in July. That’s a very big jump and a very high annual rate, and it’s not particularly surprising, at least not to those of us who have been looking in the rearview mirror.
According to Shaun Hildebrand, CMHC’s Senior Market Analyst for the GTA, “condominium apartments continued to push housing construction higher last month. Condo starts this year have already exceeded the total for all of 2010. Post-recession demand for new condos has been remarkable, which is now feeding into the construction side.”
Hildebrand goes on to say that “while activity is likely to moderate from recent levels, the vast number of successful project openings over the past couple years will keep condo construction high for some time.” And there’s the rearview mirror point. The fact that condominium starts are high right now tells you that sales were high as much as 12 months ago, and now construction is starting on those buildings.
Looking through my windshield, I can confirm Hildebrand’s point that condo construction is going to remain high for some time because we haven’t even begun construction on the vast majority of the nearly 15,000 condos we have sold so far this year. There’s jobs ahead, thanks to the hot high-rise condo market.
Stephen Dupuis is President and CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) and can be found on Twitter (twitter.com/bildgta), Facebook (facebook.com/bildgta), YouTube (youtube.com/bildgta) and BILD’s official online blog (bildblogs.ca).
