January Housing Starts Unchanged in P.G.

Monday, February 08, 2010 09:18 AM

Prince George, B.C.- Housing starts for January in Prince George are on par with starts for the same month last year. There were four starts last month, the same as January of 2009.

Across the province, there has been a great deal of growth. According to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, 917 new housing units broke ground in the Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) in January,

50 per cent higher than the same month a year ago. Surrey led with 295 new housing starts, closely followed by Vancouver with 234 starts.

Although there were no multiple housing starts in Prince George last month, there was solid growth in other parts of the province.

Concrete was poured for more than 400 apartment homes in the Vancouver CMA, 85 of which will be for the rental market. “Stronger new home construction in January was a continuation of the trend that began in the latter part of 2009. This trend is forecast to be sustained over the coming months,” remarked Robyn Adamache, Senior Market Analyst at CMHC.

Provincial home starts surged to 24,800 units, seasonally adjusted at annual rates (SAAR) in January, compared to 20,700 in December.

At the national level, housing starts rose to 186,300 units SAAR in January from 176,100 units in December

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Posted on Monday, February 08, 2010 09:18 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: DPJ on February 8 2010 10:19 AM

Prince George house construction is always delayed in forst couple months due to winter conditions. The true comparisona will be in march onwards.

Posted by: He spoke on February 8 2010 10:34 AM

hooray for the building inspection department for stepping in on the contractors who do not properly protect the foundation. it is so simple, but some builders in town still don't get it.

Posted by: Loki on February 8 2010 3:18 PM

Six paragraphs, one about the provincial home starts and one about the national level. The rest is about the Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area (CMA).

How relevant is that to BC overall? It's like Vancouver is representative of BC.

On a side note, what about all those rosy projections posted on opinion250 from the real estate board saying that the market is on an upswing. Were these pie-in-the-sky prognostications or was there any substance to their projections? I think they were just talking, not saying anything, just making a lot of noise about nothing.

Posted by: gus on February 9 2010 12:17 AM

Real Estate deals with ALL sales, not just new home sales. Ne home sales are a small fraction of total sales.

I was cleaning my old files the other day. I found some old housing stats from CMHC for the newly amalgamated City of PG.

For those who were here to remember, this is a reminder, and for those who were not, it might be a revelation.

Housing starts in Prince George.

The first number is for single, the second for semi, the third for row, the fourth fo apartment, the fifth is for total:

1975 - 1,121 - 160 - 74 - 102 - 1,547

1976 - 1,102 - 120 - 6 - 260 - 1,488

1977 - 885 - 17 - 0 - 75 - 977

1978 - 548 - 16 - 0 - 6 - 570

1979 - 383 - 2 - 0 - 121 - 506

1980 - 303 - 26 - 0 - 437 - 766

1981 - 590 - 60 - 0 - 311 - 961

1982 - 72 - 28 - 49 - 317 - 466

1983 - 181 - 8 - 3 - 60 - 252

---------------------------------
We have about 35,000 housing units in Prince George. At a 1% turnover rate we should eventually be building about 350 units a year just to keep the housing stock in reasonable condition.

So far we have not reached that steady state number since the crash of 1981/82.

Posted by: Loki on February 9 2010 12:05 PM

"We have about 35,000 housing units in Prince George. At a 1% turnover rate we should eventually be building about 350 units a year just to keep the housing stock in reasonable condition."

We should not be having to build new homes because if they were built right to start with, they would not have to be replaced in one's life time. There are homes in use today all over the world that are centuries old and still going strong. They need upkeep as any structure would, but they are still in serviceable condition after all those centuries.

It is the build it fast and cheap wood frame buildings that do not last. They are great to get something up, but there is no longevity. Longevity comes with stone, not brick, with a good solid foundation. Also, we should be building down, not up. We should have multi level basements.