Housing starts in the Barrie Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) were trending at 1,853 units in February, up from 1,781 in January, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The trend is a six month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR) of housing starts.
“The trend of housing starts rose slightly in February, mainly due to an increase in the trend for both singles and rows,” said Barrie CMHC market analyst Abdellah Massaoudi. “The scarcity of land continued to be a major barrier for new construction in the City of Barrie. In the past, the majority of starts in the Barrie CMA occurred in the city but in the past month, the city recorded no starts. This decline was offset by housing starts in the township of Springwater and the town of Innisfil.”
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, analyzing 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 multiples segment includes apartments, rows and semi-detached homes.
The standalone monthly SAAR was 972 units in February, down from 3,339 in January. This decrease is mainly due to high number of apartment starts in January and none in February.
Preliminary Housing Starts data is also available in English and French at the following link: Preliminary Housing Starts Tables
Tables and a graph are available at the following address: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/CMHC_1045922_ENG.pdf
