Sudbury's housing market flat in October

While construction of single family homes is still on the decline, activity in the overall residential housing market in Greater Sudbury is trending — ever so slightly — upward, according to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC).

The CMHC uses seasonally adjusted statistics to gauge the level of activity in major centres across Canada. Using a six-month average, it estimates how many single family homes are being built in a month, as well has how many other types, such as apartments and semi-detached units.

In October in Greater Sudbury, construction began on 14 homes, compared to 19 at the same time in 2014, a decline of 26 per cent. Work on all other housing units last month totalled 15, compared to eight in 2014.

When combined, work on 29 residential units began last month, compared to 27 at the same time last year.

Between January and October this year, housing starts totalled 120, the CMHC reported, compared to 144 in 2014. Construction on other residential units totalled 67, compared to 65 last year. That means overall housing construction in the city has declined by 11 per cent compared to the same period in 2015.

Canada-wide, housing starts were trending at 206,089 units in October compared to 202,793 in September.

“New condominium and rental starts continued to push the trend higher in October,” said Bob Dugan, CMHC’s chief economist, in a news release. “Rental starts across urban centres are poised to reach their highest level since 1992 due to low vacancy rates in recent years.”

CMHC uses the trend measure as a complement to the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR) of housing starts to account for considerable swings in monthly estimates and obtain a more complete picture of the state of Canada’s housing market.

In some situations, analyzing only SAAR data can be misleading, as they are largely driven by the multi-unit segment of the market which can vary significantly from one month to the next.

The standalone monthly SAAR was 198,065 units in October, down from 231,304 units in September. The SAAR of urban starts decreased by 16 per cent in October to 181,442 units. Multi-unit urban starts decreased by 22.4 per cent to 122,187 units in October and the single-detached urban starts segment increased by 1.3 per cent to 59,255 units.

In October, the seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban starts decreased in Ontario, Québec, the Prairies and Atlantic Canada, but increased in British Columbia.

Rural starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 16,623 units.