Annual pace of housing starts rises in April

The annual pace of housing starts in Canada jumped by 22% in April compared with the previous month, the national housing agency has revealed.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) said on Monday that last month saw an annual rate of 261,559 units, an increase from 213,780 in March, with a surge in multi-unit urban home starts helping account for that rise.

The annual pace of urban starts was 26% higher than last month, rising to 241,585 units, and the annual rate of multi-unit urban starts posted a 33% increase, jumping to 201,621 units. Single-detached urban starts, meanwhile, saw a slowdown of 2%, coming in at a pace of 39,964 units. For rural starts, the annual rate was estimated to be 19,974 units.

The latest figures mark a noted shift from last month, with the annual pace of national housing starts having plunged by 11% in March. In February, a 13% uptick helped cancel out a slowdown by the same percentage at the beginning of the year.

Toronto recorded a particularly noteworthy acceleration in April housing starts, which were higher in the city by 54% on a monthly basis, with Vancouver seeing a 36% increase and Montreal’s starts rising by 43%.