Derrick Penner
Sun
Provincial housing starts dropped almost 11 per cent in June from the same month last year, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported Wednesday.
Single detached homes showed the biggest decline, with the 882 units started in June representing an almost 18-per-cent decline from the same month in 2007. This continues the trend away from single-family housing and into multi-family housing, Carol Frketich, Canada Mortgage and Housing’s regional economist for B.C. said in an interview.
Canada Mortgage and Housing recorded fewer starts, both in single-family and multi-family categories in the second quarter of 2008 from the first quarter.
However, for the first half of 2008, B.C. housing starts, at 17,090 units, were up almost seven per cent from 2007. The gain though was entirely in multi-family construction.
“Single detached starts have been trending lower in response to high land prices, labour prices and high construction-material costs,” Frketich said.
In Metro Vancouver, a jump in condominium construction in the first half of 2008 also offset declining detached-home construction.
Canada Mortgage and Housing’s preliminary figures show that Metro Vancouver builders started work on 10,176 new housing units in the region, a nine-per-cent increase from the first half of 2007.
Some 8,310 of those new units were condominiums, a 13-per-cent increase from 2007. Detached homes accounted for 1,866 new-home starts, a seven-per-cent decline.
Robyn Adamache, Canada Mortgage and Housing senior analyst, expects starts to slow slightly in the second half, partly driven by rising inventories in resale markets.
“Less spillover demand from the resale market will slow the pace of building slightly from last year’s near-record high,” she added.
