Housing Starts Up in P.G.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012 @ 3:58 AM
Prince George, B.C.- Good news from Canada Mortgage and Housing on the number of housing starts in Prince George last month.
According to the national housing agency, single detached housing starts last month were up 78% over the same month last year.
Provincially, there were 3,843 starts, about a thousand more than the 2,866 started in June of 2011.
Comments
So, in other words, the year to year total was up by 46% in the Chilliwack Census Agglomeration; 26% in PG; 23% in Vernon and as low as -20% in Kelowna.
That is the good sounding news if one uses housing construction as an indicator of something such as population growth (which we know is a false indicator in PG), or an aging housing stock.
Percentages really do not tell the story.
The real percentage that should e used is a perecentage of new construction related to both eiostiing housing stock in each category as well as total population of the census agglomeration of each community.
The figures used here are fine for realtors, but have little use for city planners to show how well we are doing as a city/region.
So, here are two new tables.
Sorted by number of new dwellings under construction in 2011 YTD/1,000 existing dwellings in community and /1,000 population in each community.
1. Vancouver3.668.92
2. Victoria2.966.47
3. Kelowna2.625.81
4 Abbotsford – Mission2.264.85
5. Kamloops2.164.45
6. Nanaimo1.493.96
7. Chilliwack1.443.41
8. Prince George1.112.33
9. Vernon0.972.21
Sorted by number of dwellings built per 1,000 increase in population between 2006 and 2011 census
1. Prince George1,00781.43
2. Nanaimo5,66051.24
3. Victoria14,52751.21
4. Kamloops5,95743.48
5. Vancouver196,74743.06
6. Kelowna17,56323.17
7. Abbotsford – Mission11,17122.65
8. Vernon3,16620.53
9. Chilliwack9,84313.51
As the saying goes, build it and they hall come ….
Regardless of the figures, it is nice to see some housing going in on Tyner. That place was depressing to drive by with the one and a half houses sitting on it for a long period of time.
Great if you have half a million dollars for a house on a postage stamp size lot !!
You can thank Mike Simms for the jump in new home starts. Most of the homes in Tyner are being built by him on speculation.
The reason that site has sat dormant is because it is his retirement toy, he has now sold out his construction business and is playing with the new toy.
I think there are very few homes built in PG that are not built on speculation.
The best bet is to build one for a lottery. Virtually guaranteed to get you money out.
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