Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the total number of housing starts in 2024 rose two per cent compared with 2023, helped by increased starts in Alberta, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.
The national housing agency said housing starts totalled 245,120 last year, up from 240,267 a year earlier.
CMHC said housing starts in Canada's six largest census metropolitan areas saw a combined drop of three per cent in 2024 as starts in Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa moved lower. Calgary, Edmonton, and Montreal saw an increase in starts last year.
“Canada’s urban centres saw an uptick in housing starts in 2024 compared to last year, marking the third-highest year on record,” said CMHC chief economist Mathieu Laberge in a press release.
“While this annual increase shows some signs of progress, Canada still needs significantly higher supply growth to restore affordability in urban centres."
The national housing agency has said Canada will require an additional 3.5 million housing units by 2030, on top of the 2.3 million already projected to be built, to restore affordability to levels seen in 2004.
It estimated last spring that Canada could be building up to 400,000 new housing units annually, based on current resources devoted to residential construction.
TD economist Marc Ercolao said a divide has started to emerge between Ontario and other parts of the country, despite starts "running at a lofty level nation-wide."
"Starts are declining in the former (though December saw a bit of a rebound), as condo building is retrenching under the weight of weak demand," he said in a report.
"Further declines in Ontario are likely on tap for this year, which, when combined with cooler population growth, points to a pullback in Canadian starts in 2025."
The results for the full year came as CMHC said the seasonally adjusted annual rate for housing starts fell 13 per cent in December to 231,468 units compared with 267,140 units in November.
CIBC economist Katherine Judge called that a sharp drop-off, noting it was "well below" the consensus expectation of 250,000 units.
"That followed solid gains in the two prior months, however, leaving the pace of building for the fourth quarter overall four per cent higher than (the third quarter)," she said in a note.
"While we expect building to increase ahead in line with falling interest rates, the acceleration in starts will be limited by the weakness in condo pre-sales."
The annual pace of urban starts in December fell 14 per cent to 214,000 units. The pace of starts of multi-unit urban homes such as apartments, condominiums and townhouses dropped 15 per cent to 168,515, while the rate of urban single-detached home starts fell 10 per cent to 45,485.
The seasonally adjusted annual rate of rural starts was 17,468 units in December.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 16, 2025.
Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press
