Canadian housing starts fell 18.5% in May from April as ground breakings on urban homes declined sharply, data from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) showed.
The seasonally-adjusted annualized rate of housing starts fell to 202,337 units in May from a revised 233,410 units in April, according to CMHC. Economists had expected starts to fall to 205,000.
The annualized rate of urban housing projects such as condominiums, apartments and townhouses fell 18.5% to 141,851 in May while the pace of single-detached urban starts rose 1.8% to 45,095.
Rural housing starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 15,391 units. The six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates was 201,983 in May compared with 205,717 in April.
