The annual pace of housing starts in Ottawa-Gatineau plummeted 71 per cent in May as new builds of condos, apartments and other types of multi-unit housing projects fell sharply, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported Thursday.
The national housing agency says the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts in the region was 4,777 units last month, down from 16,713 units in April.
The drop ended a run of three consecutive months of rising starts.
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The decline was driven by a steep drop in the annual rate of multi-unit housing starts, which fell 79 per cent to 3,216 in May from 15,252 in April. The pace of single-detached starts rose slightly to 1,561 last month, up from 1,461 in April.
Builders in Ottawa-Gatineau started work on just 429 new housing units last month, a 67 per cent drop from the 1,315 starts recorded in May 2022.
Multi-unit starts showed the biggest decline, falling 85 per cent in Gatineau and 57 per cent in Ottawa. Single-detached starts, meanwhile, were down 56 per cent in Ottawa and 45 per cent on the Gatineau side of the river.
National starts down
Nationally, CMHC says the annual pace of housing starts in May dropped 23 per cent compared with April as multi-unit starts fell in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.
The national housing agency says the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts was 202,494 units in May, down from 261,357 units in April.
The drop came as the annual rate of urban starts dropped 24 per cent to 182,842 for the month as the annual rate of multi-unit urban starts fell 30 per cent to 139,890 units, offset in part by a six per cent increase in single-detached urban starts to 42,952 units.
CMHC says housing starts in Vancouver fell 45 per cent in May, while Toronto dropped 28 per cent and Montreal declined 35 per cent as all three cities saw increases in single-detached starts offset by large decreases in multi-unit starts.
The annual rate of rural starts for the month was estimated at 19,652 units.
CMHC says the six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts was 230,205 units in May, down 4.2 per cent from 240,318 units in April.
– With additional reporting from the Canadian Press
