GTA starts stumble, but national outlook improves

November 15, 2019

Photo by Kelvin Chan

October starts of single-detached houses in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) fell to their lowest level this year, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC). CMHC reports detached house starts increased modestly in the rest of the country from a month earlier. It also forecast that housing starts will improve in 2020.
The GTA posted 404 detached house starts in October while total starts of multiple-family units in the region were down 34 per cent from September, to 2,265 units.
Nationally, October detached house starts increased 2.4 per cent from a month earlier on a seasonally adjusted basis, with 49,786 houses breaking ground, CMHC reported.
Across Canada, multiple urban starts decreased by 12.5 per to 139,518 units in October compared to September.
In a recent forecast, CMHC cautioned that total housing starts are expected to register a second consecutive annual decline in 2019 before stabilizing in 2020 and 2021. CMHC notes starts for single-detached and multi-unit housing types will remain below the peaks observed in 2017 (for single-detached starts) and 2018 (for multi-unit starts).
In its annual market outlook, CMHC said that housing starts should come in at around 200,000 units in each of the next two years. That’s above the estimated 194,000 expected this year but still well below the decade-high of almost 220,000 units in 2017.