Just as we've seen for many months in a row, housing starts in Edmonton in January remained low. Total starts in January were 413 – 147 were single family homes and 266 were multi-family. Only 86 single family starts were within the city limits.
Compared to other parts of the province, multi-family starts were down 72% in Edmonton, 89% in Calgary, and 60% in Lethbridge compared to last January. Looking at single family homes, Edmonton was down 30%, Calgary down 44%, Lethbridge down 58% and Red Deer 47%. Obviously this is not something unique to Edmonton.
Looking at the rest of the country, urban starts declined 8.6% in Atlantic Canada, 1.4% in Quebec, 14.6%, 30.3% in the Prairies, and 29.1% in British Columbia.
“Provided new home inventories decline in the months ahead, we remain optimistic that a modest uptick in single-detached starts should occur during the second half of 2009,” noted Richard Goatcher, CMHC’s Senior Market Analyst based in Edmonton.
We also expect a "modest" increase in single family starts as we get closer to the end of the year. We are finding certain price ranges are over supplied, while others seem to be under supplied – a well priced home in a good neighbourhood will sell very quickly.
