Housing starts in Québec's urban centres were trending at 31,564 units in July, compared to 30,789 in June, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR) of housing starts.
“We still expect that the pace of housing starts will pick up slightly in the second half of the year,” said Kevin Hughes, CMHC Regional Economist for the province of Quebec.
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 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 stand-alone monthly SAAR was 29,652 units in July, down from 30,023 in June.