August 2015 Housing Starts in Toronto

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Sept. 9, 2015) - Housing starts in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) trended at 43,846 units in August compared to 36,839, in July according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The trend is a six month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR)¹ of housing starts.

"Significant increases in apartment starts lifted the trend number to its highest level since early 2013," said Dana Senagama, CMHC Principal Market Analyst for the GTA. "High sales of pre-construction condominium apartment units throughout 2014 continue to convert to starts this year."

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, analysing 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 65,097 units in August, up from 23,716 units in July. This was largely the result of an increase in apartment starts this month.

For the second time this year the suburban regions of Toronto CMA together had a larger number of apartment starts than the City of Toronto. However, the City of Toronto was still the municipality with the highest number of total starts, most of which were apartment units. The City of Richmond Hill followed by the municipalities of Mississauga and Vaughan had the next highest number of apartment starts.

Preliminary Housing Starts data is also available in English and French at the following link: Preliminary Housing Starts Tables.

As Canada's authority on housing, CMHC contributes to the stability of the housing market and financial system, provides support for Canadians in housing need, and offers objective housing research and information to Canadian governments, consumers and the housing industry.

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^[1] All starts figures in this release, other than actual starts and the trend estimate, are seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR) - that is, monthly figures adjusted to remove normal seasonal variation and multiplied by 12 to reflect annual levels. By removing seasonal ups and downs, seasonal adjustment allows for a comparison from one season to the next and from one month to the next. Reporting monthly figures at annual rates indicates the annual level of starts that would be obtained if the monthly pace was maintained for 12 months. This facilitates comparison of the current pace of activity to annual forecasts as well as to historical annual levels.

This release is also available at www.cmhc.ca

Additional data is available upon request.

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Tables and a graph are available at the following address: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/150909_TORONTO.pdf