Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the pace of housing starts rose in June, driven by urban multiple starts — condos, apartments and the like.
The federal agency estimates there were 20,327 actual starts in June across the country, up from 18,494 in June 2011.
Tweaked to remove monthly variations, that produced a seasonally adjusted annual figure of 222,700 last month, up from 217,400 in May.
Urban starts increased by 2.6% to 199,500 units in June on a seasonally adjusted basis, with urban single starts off 0.3% and multiple starts up 4.1% to 132,000.
Urban starts for June rose 7.7% in Atlantic Canada, 17.3% in Quebec and by 31.2% in British Columbia.
The number of starts slipped by 6.9% in the Prairies and by nine per cent in Ontario.
