Housing starts in Quebec were trending at 32,131 units in December, compared to 32,491 units in November, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted
annual rates (SAAR) of housing starts.
“The lower pace of housing starts in December is observable in both single detached and multi-family home categories. If Quebec housing starts increased in 2014, it was due to developments in certain large apartment construction sites in downtown Montréal. Had it not been for this particular case, the yearly total would have been down,” said Kevin Hughes, CMHC’s Senior Economist for Quebec.
CMHC uses the trend measure as a complement to the monthly SAAR of housing starts to account for considerable swings in monthly estimates and obtain a more complete picture of the state of the housing market. In some situations, analyzing only SAAR data can be misleading in some markets, as they are largely driven by the multiples segment of the markets , which can be quite variable from one
month to the next.
The stand-alone monthly SAAR was 29,760 units in December, down from 36,106 in November.