THUNDER BAY – Business – Thunder Bay Housing Starts were impacted by frigid weather in January. Just as retail sales in Toronto were hammered by the Ice Storm and cold weather in December and early January, housing construction in Thunder Bay was affected by weather.
However the drop is not massive. “A slightly below average month for construction of single-detached housing in January weakened housing starts for the month in Thunder Bay. Two singles starts were two units behind the 10-year average for the month. This was not surprising given the unusually cold month experienced by Thunder Bay residents,” said Warren Philp, CMHC’s Market Analyst for Thunder Bay.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is reporting, “Housing starts in Thunder Bay, Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) were trending at 301 units in January, down from 322 units in December”. The CMHC states that the trend is a six month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR) 1 of housing starts.
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, analysing 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 standalone monthly SAAR was 127 units in January, down from 157 units in December.
