PG Housing Starts Significantly Off-Pace From Last Year
Prince George, BC – The number of new housing starts in Prince George in the first quarter of 2012 is down significantly over the same period last year…
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s statistics show a total of 15 new starts – 11 singled-detached homes and 4 multi-family dwellings – for the months of January through March. Over the first three months of 2011, the city recorded 41 starts – 5 single family and 36 multi-family – a 63-percent reduction.
CMHC statistics show an even greater 75-percent drop in Kamloops, from 183 starts in the beginning of 2011 to just 46 at the start of this year. Abbotsford also recorded a significant decline of 38-percent. Kelowna held relatively steady with 120 starts this year compared to 122 last year. Nanaimo is showing strong growth so far this year, with 234 new housing starts compared to 142 last year.
CMHC’s Regional Economist, Carol Frketic, says the overall housing market outlook for the province is expected to pick up the rest of this year and into 2013. "Home builders are expected to gradually ramp up residential construction in response to signals from the resale market and economic developments." She explains that well-supplied resale markets continue to draw some demand away from new homes, but as resale market conditions improve, fewer listings and firmer resale prices will shift some of the demand back to new homes.
The number of single-detached and multiple-unit starts is forecast to be 28,600 in 2012 and 30,100 in 2013.
Comments
Just yesterday I heard someone from the realestate board talking up the economy pointing to a strong new housing market….
Talk is cheap.
How often has that been said, say in the past 10 years? Then compare the actual starts to see how accurate the predictions were. They may have been very accurate. Then again, they may not have been.
BTW, in which direction was he pointing? ;-)
BTW, the number of single starts doubled over last year … That is the predominate housing form in this community. Those 36 from last year ….. how many are still for sale? I was just driving by the units on Ferry …. while driving by, I saw what seemed to be quite a number of “for sale” signs on the units.
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