Housing Starts

Housing Starts counts new Canadian homes where builders poured footing concrete, confirmed by site visits, not permits or intentions. It covers permanent, year-round homes in Canada, tracked by CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation) through its Starts and Completions Survey.

Coverage is monthly in cities and agglomerations over 50,000 people, with centres of 10,000 to 49,999 fully counted in the final month of each quarter. The survey counts single-detached houses (1 standalone home) plus multi-unit types such as semis, rows, and apartments. It excludes renovations, seasonal homes, hotels, institutions, and movable units without permanent foundations.

CMHC releases data at 8:15 AM Eastern Time on the 11th business day after each reference month. Results appear on its site and portal in English and French with Excel tables. Field teams confirm starts by site visit each month in large cities, count midsize towns each quarter-end month, and estimate gaps statistically.

Each release shows the six-month trend and monthly SAAR for all areas and urban centres over 10,000. It also shows monthly and year-to-date actuals by province and CMA, a rural estimate, completions, and construction stock. It adds approved but unstarted units, absorption context, and brief analysis. Readers compare actuals with the same month last year, SAAR with the prior month, and trend for direction, while estimates revise as full counts arrive.

Moves come from 4 dwelling types plus tenure splits, summed with no weights.

• Single-Detached: 1 fully separated home, including linked homes sharing only a basement wall.
• Semi-Detached: 1 of 2 side-by-side homes sharing a ground-to-roof wall.
• Row: 1 home in a line of 3 or more attached homes sharing side walls.
• Apartment and other: duplexes, stacked townhouses, and apartment blocks, the volatile swing driver.
• Intended market: tenure split such as freehold (owner holds home and lot), condo, rental, or co-op.

The September 2024 release, published October 16, 2024, shows the gap between monthly pace and trend. The six-month trend fell 1.3% from 246,972 to 243,759 units, while monthly SAAR rose 5% from 213,012 to 223,808 units.

Urban SAAR reached 210,002 units, up 6%, with multi-unit at 163,400, up 6%, and single-detached at 46,602, up 5%, plus 13,806 rural. Year-to-date actuals in centres over 10,000 rose 2% to 168,897 from 165,559 in 2023. Montreal rose 15% after a low 2023, while Vancouver fell 19% against a record 2023 and Toronto fell 20% from a high 2023.

1. Confirm the start: enumerators confirm each unit by site visit when footing concrete is poured, giving Actual, or units started that month.
2. Remove seasonality: adjust Actual for past seasonal patterns to get SA, or seasonally adjusted starts.
3. Annualise: multiply SA by 12 to get SAAR. For example 15,000 actual starts adjust to 17,500, giving 210,000 SAAR.
4. Smooth the pace: average the last 6 SAAR values to get Trend. For example 6 values of 210,000, 200,000, 205,000, 215,000, 220,000 and 210,000 total 1,260,000 and give 210,000.
5. Fill gaps: estimate midsize towns monthly by province for single- and multi-unit and small centres by sample, then add rural estimate to urban SAAR.