Ottawa-Gatineau’s annual pace of housing starts rose 18 per cent in September compared with August thanks to a surge in the rate of multi-residential starts, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says.
The housing agency says the region’s monthly seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts last month came in at 17,414 units, up from 14,793 in August.
Ottawa’s rate of starts jumped 33 per cent month-over-month to 14,498. By contrast, Gatineau saw its pace of starts fall 26 per cent to 2,916.
The annual pace of multi-unit urban starts gained 27 per cent at 15,672, while the rate of single-detached urban starts declined 29 per cent to 1,742 in September. The multi-residential gains were concentrated on the Ottawa side of the river, where the pace of starts rose 51 per cent to 13,044.
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Builders started work on 1,499 new housing units in the region last month, a 26 per cent decline from a year earlier but an increase from the 1,245 starts recorded in August.
Single-detached starts dropped 33 per cent compared with the previous year to 193. Multi-unit starts fell 24 per cent year-over-year to 1,306.
From a national perspective, CMHC says the annual pace of starts in September rose eight per cent compared with August.
The housing agency says the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts in September came in at 270,466 units, up from 250,383 in August.
The increase came as the annual pace of urban housing starts rose nine per cent to 250,766 in September.
The annual pace of multi-unit urban starts gained 10 per cent at 207,689, while the rate of single-detached urban starts increased three per cent to 43,077 in September.
The annual rate of rural starts was estimated at 19,700 units.
The six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts in September was 254,006, up 3.9 per cent from 244,511 in August.
– With additional reporting from the Canadian Press
