{"id":479454,"date":"2026-02-17T00:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T00:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/479454\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T00:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T00:16:07","slug":"housing-starts-drop-15-in-january-cmhc-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/479454\/","title":{"rendered":"Housing starts drop 15% in January, CMHC reports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Carpenters build a log home made from white pine in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Que., in October, 2025.Christinne Muschi\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

The pace of homebuilding in Canada continues to slow with no near-term signs of a turnaround, said Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. on Monday.<\/p>\n

The national housing agency said the seasonally-adjusted annual pace of housing starts declined 15 per cent in January.<\/p>\n

Housing starts can vary considerably month-to-month as big projects get started, but the agency\u2019s six-month moving average for annual starts also showed a 3.5 per cent decline.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe six-month trend has decreased for the fourth consecutive month,\u201d said CMHC deputy chief economist Tania Bourassa-Ochoa in a news release.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect new construction to continue trending lower going forward as trade and geopolitical uncertainty, high construction costs, weaker demand, and rising inventories continue to constrain developer activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said a near-term turnaround is looking unlikely, and reflects what the agency has been hearing from developers over recent months.<\/p>\n

Most homeowners dodge mortgage renewal pain as Toronto, Vancouver flash warning signs: CMHC<\/a><\/p>\n

The pullback comes amid a variety of pressures, including lower immigration numbers and economic uncertainty over changing U.S. trade policy.<\/p>\n

January\u2019s seasonally adjusted annual rate worked out to 238,049 units, compared with 280,668 units in December. It says the January drop more than offset the increase observed in December.<\/p>\n

Actual housing starts were up one per cent year-over-year in centres with a population of 10,000 or greater. Some 16,088 unit starts in those centres were recorded in January, compared with 15,957 a year ago.<\/p>\n

The six-month moving average of the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts was 254,794 units for January.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mark Carney campaigned on a promise to double housing construction to 500,000 homes a year over a decade. TD said in a report that the previous high was 260,000 in the mid-1970s.<\/p>\n

Last September, the federal government launched a new agency called Build Canada Homes with an aim to accelerating construction. It said it will provide an initial $13 billion to the agency for it to enable financing, provide land and help builders get projects off the ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Carpenters build a log home made from white pine in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Que., in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,45,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-479454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}