New home construction in Ottawa roars ahead.
August 11, 2004 - Yet another report demonstrated Tuesday that Ottawa's long-enduring housing boom is far from over, with housing starts in July at a 16-year high for the month.
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported that construction began on 790 residential units last month, up 33.7 per cent from a year ago and by 33.2 per cent from June.
The report follows a day after Statistics Canada released robust building permits data for June. Statscan reported Monday that $103.87 million worth of residential building permits were issued in Ottawa in June, up by 25.1 per cent from May.
Also on Tuesday, Statscan reported that new home prices continue to tick upward in the nation's capital, in keeping with the national trend as builders face stiffer costs for materials and skilled labour. The local selling price of a new home in June was up by 7.8 per cent year-over-year and by 1.2 per cent from May of this year.
"With the continued surge in new home construction, our forecast has been revised up to 6,600 housing starts by the end of this year," said Christian Douchant, senior market analyst for Ottawa, adding, "demand for new homes is evidenced by the strong number of sales already on the books for this year."
On a year to date basis, 2004 is firmly on track to exceed last year's record tally.
"Year-to-date construction for the first seven months of this year is well ahead of last year's pace; builders in Ottawa have posted 3,934 housing starts, an increase of 12 per cent from the 3,509 starts recorded through July of last year."
In July, the costlier end of the market, single-family homes, jumped by 32 per cent, to 433 starts.
"This is the third consecutive year-over-year increase in single-family starts in Ottawa and points to another strong year for single-family construction," Mr. Douchant said, adding that "inventories for new single family dwellings are low, and continued favourable mortgage markets mean we can expect healthy construction to continue well into the rest of this year."
On the year to date, single starts are up by 10 per cent, to 1,824 units, from the first seven months of 2003.
The cheaper end of the market, multiples, was also stronger last month. Multiple starts, which include condos, towns and apartments, were up by 36 per cent from a year ago, to 357.
The only area of Ottawa to see a decline in starts last month was the old city of Kanata.
© Copyright 2004 The Ottawa Business Journal