Ottawa-Gatineau’s annual pace of housing starts rose more than 20 per cent in July as demand for multi-unit developments continued to fuel new construction, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says.
The agency says the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts in the National Capital Region was 17,230 units last month, up 22 per cent from 14,107 in June.
The annual pace of multi-unit starts such as apartments and condos jumped 25 per cent to 15,540 units in July, compared with 12,468 the previous month.
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The annual pace of single-family starts was 1,690 last month, a three per cent increase from June.
Builders in Gatineau particularly accelerated their rate of apartment construction in July. The annual pace of multi-unit starts on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River surged 120 per cent last month to 2,640.
Meanwhile, the pace of multi-unit starts in Ottawa was 12,900, up 14 per cent from June.
Homebuilders in Ottawa-Gatineau started work on 1,466 new housing units in July, a 16 per cent increase from 1,260 units a year earlier. Multi-unit starts rose 18 per cent year-over-year to 1,295, while single-family starts increased just six per cent to 171.
CMHC says there were 6,314 housing starts in Ottawa in the first seven months of 2025, up from 3,750 in the same period a year ago. Builders in Gatineau launched 1,571 new units from January to the end of July, down from 1,861 during the same period last year.
Nationally, CMHC says the annual pace of housing starts in July rose four per cent compared with June.
The agency says the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts was 294,085 units for July, up from 283,523 in June.
The seasonally adjusted annual pace of housing starts for Canadian centres with a population of 10,000 or greater was 273,618 units, up five per cent from 261,171 in June.
The annual pace of rural starts was estimated at 20,467 units.
CMHC says actual housing starts in July for centres with a population of 10,000 or greater was 23,464 units, up four per cent from 22,610 in July 2024.
The six-month moving average of the overall seasonally adjusted annual rate housing starts for all areas was 263,088 units in July, up 3.7 per cent from June.
– With additional reporting from the Canadian Press
