THUNDER BAY – REAL ESTATE – Thunder Bay’s Housing Market is trending up. Housing starts in Thunder Bay, Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) were trending at 246 units in September up from 180 units in August according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The trend is a six month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR)1 of housing starts.
“Strengthening seasonally adjusted starts in Thunder Bay were the result of several months of frail new residential construction. This behaviour added to a very volatile year with weaker employment levels and increased resale listings. For the remainder of the year we expect to see a slightly stronger fourth quarter in single-detached starts while starts of semi-detached, apartment and row starts should be relatively quiet,” advised 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 409 units in September up from 226 in August.
The Thunder Bay trend follows both the national and the Ontario trend.
The trend measure of housing starts in Canada was 197,747 units in September compared to 191,095 in August, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR)1 of housing starts.
“The increase in the trend reflects stronger starts activity since April, largely concentrated in multi-unit dwellings including condominiums,” said Bob Dugan, CMHC’s Chief Economist. “However, the currently elevated level of condominium units under construction supports our view that condominium starts should trend lower over the coming months.”
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, as they are largely driven by the multi-unit segment of the market which can be quite variable from one month to the next.
The standalone monthly SAAR was 197,343 units in September, up modestly from 196,283 in August. The SAAR of urban starts increased to 177,019 in September, from 176,234 in August. Multiple urban starts in September increased to 114,579 units while the single-detached urban starts segment decreased to 62,440 units.
In September, the seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban starts decreased in British Columbia and Atlantic Canada, and increased in Quebec, Ontario and the Prairies.
