Housing Starts Decreased From November to December

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) saw that December had an increase of housing starts over the month of November. December saw that starts were trending at 14,013 units, where November had 13,941 units.

The monthly seasonally adjusted rates (SAAR) of total housing starts show a trend of a six month moving average. "The trend in total housing starts in December was relatively stable compared to the previous month. A moderation in the trend of singledetached starts was offset by a rise in multi-family construction," said Richard Cho, CMHC's senior market analysis for Calgary.

The trend measure is used by CMHC to complement the monthly SAAR of housing starts, which assists in accounting for considerable swings in monthly estimates. This allows for a more complete picture of the state of the housing market.

Analyzing only SAAR data can sometimes be misleading, as they are largely driven by the multiples segment of the markets which can be quite variable from one month to the next.

December had 10,914 units as the standalone monthly SAAR, which was a decrease from the 20,509 units in November. The decline in total starts was mainly due to a low number of multi-family starts.

CMHC's preliminary housing start data showed that January to December, 2013 had a total of 12,584 units.

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