After three months of frenzied activity, homebuilders in Ottawa-Gatineau collectively took a breather to end the second quarter, according to data released by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. Friday.
Developers started construction on 761 new homes across the region last month, a 21 per cent decline over June 2020. The decrease was primarily due to a relatively low number of multi-residential starts, which can fluctuate from month to month.
Meanwhile, the region’s annual pace of housing starts – a rolling average designed to smooth out monthly fluctuations – was also pulled down by the relatively few number of apartment and condo projects kicking off in June.
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CMHC said the seasonally adjusted annual rate of new builds in Ottawa-Gatineau was 8,868 new homes, a 56 per cent decline from May.
Nationally, the annual pace of housing starts also slowed in June.
CMHC says the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts fell 1.5 per cent to 282,070 units in June compared with 286,296 in May.
The annual pace of urban starts fell 1.8 per cent in June to 251,190 as the pace of starts for apartments, condos and other types of multiple-unit housing projects rose 0.6 per cent to 191,085.
Starts of single-detached urban homes fell 8.5 per cent to 60,105.
CMHC estimated rural starts at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 30,880 units.
The six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts was 293,567 in June, up from 284,837 in May.
– With reporting by The Canadian Press
