The Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation (CMHC) came with some good news for the Canadian real estate market with the new report on new home construction starts in January 2011. There were more new home starts in January 2011 than in December 2010. The seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts moved up from 169,000 units in December 2010 to 170,400 units in January.

Housing starts were declining throughout 2010 towards demographic fundamentals by Q4 of 2010. The CMHC confirmed that the year 2010 ended with a total of 189,930 actual housing units started.

Bob Dugan, Chief Economist at CMHC’s Market Analysis Centre said that rural starts drove the January numbers and were responsible for the overall increase, but multiples and single-detached starts decreased slightly.

Urban starts decreased by 1.7 per cent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 146,900 units in January. Urban multiple starts declined by 1.5 per cent in January to 82,900 units, while single urban starts moved lower by 2.0 per cent to 64,000 units. January’s seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban starts decreased by 19.0 per cent in the Prairie Region, by 7.9 per cent in British Columbia, and by 1.0 per cent in Québec. Urban starts increased by 13.3 per cent in Atlantic Canada and by 10.3 per cent in Ontario. Rural starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 23,500 units in January, which was a jump from the 19,500 units reported in December 2010.