Housing starts in Thunder Bay, Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) were trending at 115 units in May down slightly from 117 units in April 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.
“Seasonally adjusted housing starts in Thunder Bay saw a slight decrease in May. After an extremely quiet first four months for single-detached starts brought on by the late spring, May saw 13 new single units. Yet, this was still behind the ten-year-average for single-detached starts in May,” stated Warren Philp, CMHC’s Market Analyst for Thunder Bay.
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 160 units in May, down from 206 in April.
