While being considered as in a "technical recession", the Bank of Montreal boasts that the housing market in Canada is not showing any signs of a drop. In a note quoted by huffingtonpost.ca, the bank said that there are good times ahead.
This was not the signs indicated in the latest report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. The seasonally adjusted numbers on new construction indicated that in July, there is a lower number of multi-unit projects in the metropolitan areas. The agency said that in the national scale, there were 193,032 units started, compared to 202,338 units from June. This low number was even below the forecasts set at 195,000 units for July, according to Thomson Reuters.
The numbers were echoed by Bank of Montreal economist Robert Kavcic, who said that the housing starts were "consistent with demographic demand, but inconsistent with past national recessions." He added, "Indeed while activity in Alberta and Sakatchewan has been scaled back since oil prices began to slide, the rest of the country has held steady or seen activity increase."
On the other hand, other states showed better numbers. In a report from biv.com, housing starts in British Columbia and Vancouver were up in July. For British Columbia, the annualized and seasonally adjusted housing starts for July were counted at 36,501, a 4.7 percent increase from June starts at 34,870. Vancouver for its part, had a whopping 7.9 percent increase from 27,349 units in July compared to just 25,360 for June.
The increase was attributed by CMHC principal market analyst for Vancouver Robyn Adamache to strong demand throughout the state. She said, "Strong demand for all types of homes translated into higher levels of housing starts in July. The trend measure of single-detached house construction edged higher while apartment and town home building registered more substantial increases. These trends point to robust demand for homes across the price spectrum."
