Housing starts in the Vernon area for September were higher than the same month in 2012.
Statistics from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) show there were 12 single-detached and one multiple starts in September for a total of 13.
In September 2012, there were only seven starts, all single-detached homes.
Year-to-date figures for Vernon are also up over 2012.
There have been 97 single-detached starts this year along with 45 multiple starts for a total of 142. That’s up from 2012 when there were 118 starts through the same time period, including 89 single-detached homes.
The Kelowna Census Metropolitan Area was trending at 824 units in September compared to 771 units in August.
The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR)of housing starts.
“The detached home sector led Kelowna area housing starts, trending higher in September. The increase in single-detached home construction brought the stand-alone monthly SAAR more in line with the housing starts trend,” explained Paul Fabri, CMHC’s senior market analyst for Kelowna.
The trend measure for multiple-family starts was stable, also edging slightly higher in September.
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 864 units in September 2013, compared to 640 units in August 2013.
